


His Tear

by meinstorie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spellcaster, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Human!Lance, Hunk is the same sunshine boi he always is, Keith is kinda an asshole too, Lance is just tryna cope tbh, Light Angst, M/M, Magic Classes, Magic School, Original Fantasy World, Pidge is a gremlin, Rolo is kind of an asshole, Spellcaster!Hunk, Spellcaster!Keith, Spellcaster!Pidge, Spellcaster!Shiro, Ulaz is a teacher woo, broganes, more tags/characters to be added with later chapters, rating might change with later chapters too, save the children from the awful food please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 44,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meinstorie/pseuds/meinstorie
Summary: Keith has been searching for a strong jewel, known as the Tear of Seradyth, and finally gets enough clues of its location but before he can manage to find it something undefeatable gets in his way.Lance has been needing new headphones for a while now and gets an opportunity to get some extra money but instead of getting him new headphones this opportunity turns his whole world around.





	1. And So They Collide

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fantasy world created by my 'amazing' imagination but it's more like a beta version of my original story's fantasy world so it's not the best? Probably. (ﾟｰﾟ;
> 
> I've done all the editing on my own since I don't have anyone else do it for me so no beta reader here, sorry...
> 
> BUT I did my best to make it good and I'm pretty proud of it after working on it almost two months, so I really hope it's good enough for the readers, too. Plus I've been so excited to get this out!

The door was thrown open, causing a loud bang that echoed throughout the relatively big room, catching everyone’s attention. Even the students who had been very intently studying lifted their gazes from their books to see what was happening, but, after everyone saw who it was, they turned back to whatever they were doing in disinterest. It wasn’t that abnormal and it happened quite often in this particular library, meaning no one was even surprised to see Keith Kogane standing in the doorway, scanning the people in a search for a certain someone.

 

The dark haired boy finally spotted who he had been looking for and made his way over to one of the tables that was near the bookshelves which held many books acquired from the other side of the Gate. He put down the stack of books he was carrying but this time everyone seemed to pretend to not even hear the loud bang that was caused by him just dropping them from his hands.

 

For a while the person, Pidge Holt, who had already occupied the aforementioned table before Keith had gotten there and who was the one he had been looking for, looked at the books that had just been dropped in front of them with a hint of curiosity. They reached out to take the book that was on top of all the others and moved it around in their hands with wonder before they returned it back on the stack.

 

“What is this, Kogane?” they asked, turning to look at Keith and batting their eyelashes in innocent confusion despite knowing _exactly_ what the books in front of them were. They earned a glare at their way and their lips curved into a mischievous grin. They knew they were getting an answer anyway.

 

After making sure Pidge had received his glare, Keith turned to glare at anyone who made the mistake of looking his way. It was his way of scaring off _‘predators’_. He grunted after making sure no one’s eyes were on him or his friend and dropped down on the chair next to Pidge who was still waiting for an answer in mock-confusion.

 

“You asked for books, I found some and got them for you. It’s as easy as that,” Keith deadpanned, trying to avoid Pidge’s sharp gaze.

 

After a long moment of just staring that made Keith squirm, their gaze left him alone in order to shift their attention to the new books with a knowing hum. They picked a random book from the stack and the tower of books didn’t even falter. _A terrifying skill of theirs._

 

“In other words you stole them,” Pidge stated matter of factly without even glancing at Keith, keeping their eyes on the pages they were flipping through while enjoying the feeling of fresh, untouched pages against their fingertips. Keith only got his friend the best, after all.

 

“No. I paid for them so it wasn’t stealing,” he muttered in his defense but he already knew what Pidge was going to say next. And it wasn’t going to be something he would like to hear despite knowing it to be the truth.

 

“You do know roobens have no actual value on the other side of the Gate, right? So even if you paid for these books, the currency you paid with is worth nothing in value to the shopkeepers.”

 

“Well,” Keith hissed, leaning closer to Pidge while attempting to glare a hole through their head, “I can’t help it if my best friend just happens to want books from the other side of the Gate and I have none of that currency those humans use!”

 

His voice was quiet even though internally he wanted to yell those words with all the voice he could muster. He did indeed yell it inside his mind, though, trying to convey his anger with his eyes instead.

 

He only earned an eye-roll from Pidge before his friend focused all their attention back to the book open in their hands. They hummed quietly for good measure, knowing that to tick Keith off even more.

 

Keith gritted his teeth but managed to convince his impulses to leave it at that. This turn of events gave him time to just roll his head back and think, anyway.

 

Mentions of visiting the other side of the Gate were very taboo unless you were looking to get into trouble or you were licensed to go. Adults were allowed to go there with special permissions, the aforementioned licenses being one of the forms of said permissions, from the council, of course. But _children_?

 

Children, which Keith still unfortunately counted as, were banned from even approaching the Gate and had to stay at least 27 steps away from it at all times. Keith found this stupid since he had gone to the other side, also known as Areth, many times and nothing that would put him in danger had happened. This side of the Gate, known as Oreas, was much more dangerous in his opinion. _There was even a class about the dangers of Oreas and defence against them in schools, for crying out loud!_

 

Keith rolled his head to the side, his vision blurring since he wasn’t looking at anything in particular, as he recalled that one time he had gotten caught sneaking through the Gate into Areth.

 

_Thank god_ Shiro had been the one to catch him back then. If it had been Allura or anyone else of the more strict variety of people that were in charge of watching over the Gate, Keith would most likely have been cursed to be unable to cross to the other side. Shiro had still been quite disappointed in him and held a whole hour long speech about how dangerous it was, even sprinkling all the historical _‘evidence’_ into the lecture.

 

Of course Keith knew of the history that had caused all this variness with the Gate. He knew how many people had left Oreas to go live in Areth just to get executed after the humans, that roamed Areth, had discovered their powers. They had called it the witch hunt despite very little of the people they had executed had been given the ‘witch’ title, which was only given to those spellcasters who were highly ranked in spellcasting.

 

But despite all this, Keith didn’t want to believe that the past defined how things were seen in the present and, as long as he kept his abilities hidden when going to the other side of the Gate, there would be no problem. Also, Keith had got evidence that the thing he had been searching for was in Areth.

 

After looking into many history- and mythology books for clues, Keith finally managed to find evidence for what he had known to be only a legend for most of his life. Now he had proof that it existed and all the clues from several different books pointed to Areth. That was where he would find the Tear of Seradyth.

 

It wasn’t actually known for sure if the gemstone with powerful magic sealed inside it was actually a tear shed by a creature from an old story that had been told forward for many centuries but it was certainly named after this legend.

 

Keith remembered reading the descriptions of Seradyth and Giratoph many times during his research and he had to admit that it was quite fascinating, even without his huge interest in mythical beings.

 

Seradyth and Giratoph were the heads of a creature who had no official name but was often referred to as Zis, which in ancient language of Oreas meant ‘none’. For that to have meant that the creature didn’t exist or that it just was too powerful to be named, no one knew for sure. Keith prefered the latter option.

 

The creature’s lower body looked like a mix of a snake’s tail and an eel’s tail. According to the legend its whole body was covered in big sharp scales that could cause a scratch even on iron. Its upper body possessed fours arms that resembled those of a human but a lot thinner and longer, just like a spider’s. And, of course, it had two heads, both very identical in looks, and both resembling to a head of a humanoid creature with scales and ice blue eyes with no pupils.

 

It was believed that while Giratoph cried during the night and laughed during the days, Seradyth never showed any emotion at any time. Which was exactly why the Tear of Seradyth was believed to possess amazing amounts of magic energy, some legends even hinting that it contained all of Seradyth’s powers within, because it had been the one and only sign of emotion Seradyth had ever showed. Though, Keith didn’t have actual proof that the creature known as Zis had actually existed, the tear shaped gem holding amazing powers certainly had and still, hopefully, did.  

 

Keith was rudely snapped out of his thoughts when someone hit his shoulder with something square and hard. He jumped, almost causing the chair he had been sitting on to fall over.

 

He turned to glare at his friend after regaining his balance and he was met with Pidge’s brown eyes that were staring at him pointedly. His friend was holding one of the books, which Keith concluded to be the object he had just been hit with, in their hands.

 

“We need to get going before they start the closing time check ups,” Pidge stated as they started stuffing as many of the science Arethian books from the table to their backpack. Usually, Pidge could have easily used magic to get them all into their bag, but using magic inside the library was very detectable and easily catched the attention of the monitors.

 

Keith realized how this would be bad, especially since the spell they used for the check up would reveal every book that wasn’t registered into the database of the library. This also worked for books from Areth, which meant they would detect unregistered Arethian books and easily make the conclusion that someone had gone to the other side unauthorised.

 

Keith didn’t feel like getting caught for illegally sneaking between worlds, to steal books of all things, so he started to help Pidge gather up all the books since they only had approximately 10 minutes before the check ups started.

 

Soon they were both out the library doors with Keith carrying half of the books in his bag while the rest of them were safely hidden in Pidge’s backpack. No one questioned them on their way out since it was quite normal for Pidge to bring their own books to the library.

 

The two of them looked at each other and Pidge couldn’t help but snicker while Keith grinned widely. Keith really liked his best friend even if they were a gremlin sometimes.

 

**\-----**

 

“Tío Lance!” a small kid screamed with joy, running towards the tall latino, Lance McClain, who easily scooped the small girl into his arms to hold her high in the air. She giggled happily while her chestnut brown pigtails flew behind her as her uncle spun her around a few rounds.

 

After they were done spinning, Lance put the girl down so she could run to her father who was standing few steps behind Lance. This gave him enough time to greet his nephew, the girl’s younger brother, who was curiously staring at the clouds like he was trying to figure out a difficult maths exercise.

 

“What do the clouds look like today, Jacob?” Lance asked, kneeling down to about the little boy’s level to look at the sky with him.

 

The boy didn’t answer at first, too occupied staring at the passing clouds. He kept on staring for a while until he finally dropped his head forward, looking at the soft smile on his uncle’s face.

 

“There’s a horned beetle up there with a lion. They are going somewhere in hurry,” Jacob said while pointing at the fluffy clouds.

 

Lance peered up at the almost clear sky. After a while of searching, he let out a small _‘oh’_ as his gaze locked on to the two small clouds Jacob had started helpfully pointing at.

 

“Yeah,” Lance started, dropping his eyes from the clouds to look at Jacob, “they are definitely going somewhere. Probably to that picturebook your mom bought you. Or what do you think?”

 

Jacob put his hand under his chin and seemed to think it really hard for a while, his brows furrowed as he peered at the two clouds. Soon enough he dropped his hand and his expression cleared to a wide toothy grin.

 

“Probably! It did have a lion and a horned beetle in it!” He stated with pure excitement in his voice, “you’re a genius tío Lance!”

 

“What can I say, I do have the smarts,” Lance laughed, ruffling his nephew’s hair gently as his smile turned from playful to fond, “But I bet you that you’ll be even smarter than me someday!”

 

Lance winked at his nephew whose eyes started sparkling. This sight made Lance grin widely and he ruffled Jacob’s hair again, causing the little boy to giggle and screech a playful _‘stop’_.

 

After the hair ruffling session was over, Lance stood up straight, smiling at Jacob who was peering up at him with curious eyes. He offered his hand to the small boy who happily grabbed it, tugging on it a little as they walked over to where Lance’s brother, and Jacob’s father, was standing waiting with the young girl, Sophie.

 

“Thanks for helping me pick them up. They really love you,” Lance’s older brother, Antonio, said as he helped Jacob put on his seatbelt. Sophie had made it clear that she was old enough to do it on her own which meant Lance was standing next to his brother just smiling at Jacob.

 

“No problem, Tonio, I just happened to be passing by anyway!” Lance replied joyfully, returning the waves Jacob and Sophie gave him as the last open door of the car closed. He followed his brother as he walked around the car to get in to the driver’s seat.

 

As Antonio was sitting down, he glanced up at Lance. “If you want you can catch a ride with us, we have time to take you home and it would be fun to get a quick visit at home. I really miss mama’s food.”

 

Lance snorted, shaking his head at his brother. “I bet Sarah would be _joyed_ to hear that her husband prefers his mother’s food to hers.”

 

“Hey,” Antonio started, pretending to be pouting but that was soon cracked by a wide smile, “Sarah herself has admitted that mama’s food is on a whole nother level!”

 

“Fair enough,” Lance concluded with a grin matching his brother’s, “but I’ll have to decline the offer. And not just because I want to keep you from getting mama’s delicious meals, though it does play a part in it.”

 

Antonio mock-gasped, pretending to look offended by leaning back while holding his hands to his heart as if in pain. This dramatic act got a snort out of Lance.

 

_Dramatics really are strong in the family._

 

“How dare you. But alright, it’s your loss since you don’t get to be in this amazing company,” Antonio pointed at himself and then gestured at the children on the backseat who beamed at their father.

 

“Yeah, the kids are amazing conversation partners,” Lance stated, sticking his tongue out at his brother who just playfully glared at him, “I came by bike anyway, so.”

 

Antonio nodded in understanding, sitting right on his seat and closing the doors. Lance heard muffled _‘bye bye’_ s from the backseat and he waved at them again. His brother waved back at him before driving off. This was Lance’s cue to return to his trusty blue bike that he had left against the stonewall of the kindergarten.

 

As he walked back to his bike, Lance happened to notice one of his classmates standing close by. He waved at them and they waved back at him, making their way over to him. The classmate was one of his closer friends, Connor, so Lance wouldn’t mind staying a bit for a chat.

 

“Hey man, what’s up?” Lance asked in a relaxed way, pointing quick one-handed finger guns at his friend who grinned lazily at the gesture.

 

“Dude, I was just about to call you,” Connor waved the phone in their hand while smiling. “I heard you were looking for a way to make some money?”

 

“Yeah, I have to buy new headphones,“ Lance confirmed, tilting his head to the side slightly, “What you got?”

 

“So, my mom has this friend who owns a antique shop and she apparently could use a helping hand with cleaning over this weekend,” Connor explained, looking at Lance and waiting for his reaction which was an understanding nod, meant to get his friend to continue, “And she’s offering $60 for the job.”

 

Lance thought back to the headphones he wanted. He already had half the money for them and if he got 60 dollars more, he would even have some extra money left, after his purchase, to use on something else.

 

“Sounds good to me. Is there any specific day or time during the weekend cause I’m free on Saturday? Though Sunday is cool, too.”

 

Connor’s face lit up, in a way that Lance could only deduce this job had first been meant for Connor to do unless they found someone else to do it. This someone else was now Lance but he was going to get paid, so, he wasn’t about to complain.

 

“She said she would be fine with either Saturday or Sunday. I’ll tell her you can make it on Saturday, that cool?,” Connor lifted their head to look at Lance, who gave them a confirming nod, before adding, “She said that around 10 am would be a good time.”

 

“Okay, doesn’t sound like a bad time to start working. Text me the address and I’ll be there on Saturday for cleaning duty,” Lance added a joke, concluding the conversation and after an affirming nod and a short laugh from Connor, he got on his bike.

 

The two of them said their _‘see you’_ s before Lance kicked off from the ground and started pedaling away. He had a fleeting thought that getting up before nine in the morning on Saturday may have sounded a bit difficult but at least the job sounded pretty easy.

 

**\-----**

 

Saturday became sooner than expected and Lance was quite honestly just a bit excited for this job. Well, _had been_ . Because the moment he stepped into the antique shop, _right on time_ if he may add, he realized this wasn’t going to be easy money like he had anticipated. The whole shop was a mess, and one could trust Lance on this since he had seen what a mess his younger brother’s room was during his lazier weeks. The yelling Rico had gotten from their mother was something Lance didn’t want to witness or hear ever again.

 

Lance shook his head and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. An action he almost immediately regretted as he almost choked on dust. After almost coughing his lungs out, he made a note to not breathe heavily inside of the shop unless he wanted to die of dust overload.

 

His loud coughing, _more like dying_ , had apparently caught the attention of whom Lance assumed to be the owner of the shop aka Connor’s mother’s friend, because soon the small door behind the counter opened slowly and a fairly young looking woman’s head peeked out. Her eyes scanned the shop with a sharp look for a while until they finally landed on Lance who was still standing by the door.

 

Lance smiled a bit and waved unsurely, his mother’s voice in the back of his mind reminding him to be polite.

 

“Hi, um, I’m Lance McClain. I’m here to--,” he was cut off by a quick hand movement that was telling him to hold on. He watched as the woman managed her way out of what Lance assumed to be the backroom and made her way to Lance after dusting herself off a bit.

 

“You’re here to work, right? To clean and all that crap,” the woman said cheerfully and offered her hand forward, while her other hand fiddled with her long hair, for Lance to shake, which he did while nodding weakly, feeling very baffled by the woman’s persona. “I’m really grateful for the help! This place really needs some cleaning. The name’s Alise, by the way.”

 

The brunet nodded again and, surprisingly, his silence didn’t seem to bother Alise at all, though, it did bother him a little since he was usually always talking. He shook off the thoughts and smiled at Alise which the woman returned in same fashion.

 

The woman then quickly turned around and made her way back to the counter and behind it, seemingly to search for something from the desktop drawers. She had to jump over some books first to get to the drawers but she easily managed to do that. After she got into searching, all her attention was off of Lance.  

 

The latino boy didn’t want to keep staring at her because, in his opinion, it was kind of rude. He decided to move his attention to the shop itself while Alise searched for whatever she was looking for.

 

The walls looked kind of old and faded, obviously needing some repainting. While their colour had faded, it was still fairly easy to tell that they had been mint green at some point. The walls had many different kinds of clocks hanging on them but there was no ticking to be heard. After closer inspection, Lance noticed that all of the clocks had stopped in different times. Then his eyes moved to the shelves that had been positioned against the wall.

 

The shelves were made of dark wood but they, too, were slightly faded. They were filled with many different accessories, decorations and other ancient looking things that Lance’s eyes brushed over. After a bit of just inspecting, his eyes locked on to a small, probably the size of a music box, chest, catching all of his attention.

 

The chest was black with orange lines, that were identical to the colour of sunset, all over it, curling around every corner. Compared to the other things on the shelves, it looked fairly modern in style. Most of the other boxes or chests looked like they were designed many hundreds of years ago while this particular chest looked like it had been designed during this century.

 

Slowly Lance made his way to this modern looking chest. He glanced at Alise who was still busy with searching through her drawer and, for a moment, Lance thought of asking if he was allowed to even touch this chest. He decided against it since he didn’t want to bother the person who was going to be paying him for working.

 

Lance brushed his fingers against the top of the chest and finding that whatever it was made of, felt like glass. He followed the lines in soft motions until he arrived at the centre of the cap where the lines connected, making the shape of an eight turned sideways, the mark that meant infinity. He studied the mark for a while, wondering why that mark in particular, before he left his fingers slip down to the front of the chest. His finger curled under the cap of the chest. He opened it slowly, scared to move too quickly and causing some kind of noise that would alarm Alise of what he was doing.

 

The chest opened fairly easily without even making a small squeaking noise like old chests and such alike usually did. Inside it was a shallow pool of some kind of transparent liquid. It looked like clear water but had a slight orange shade to it despite being in a black chest. For a fleeting moment, Lance thought it was actually glowing but brushed the thought off since it was impossible.

 

He then noticed that in the water, at the bottom of the blackness of the chest, was a golden string that shone lightly as the light of the room hit it through the water. It was obviously just a string and not made of any metal but still it reflected light like actual gold.

 

Without really thinking it through, Lance reached for the string and slowly pulled it out of the water like liquid. The liquid felt warm like a pool of water left to the sun for too long. Lance thought it could have been caused by the fact that it was in a black chest and black tended to suck light and warmth to itself.  

 

As he lifted the string out of the _pool_ , the liquid started to move up with the string. It spiraled up, following the end of the string that had a small golden ring hanging from it.

 

Lance tried to think logically as to why this was happening but all logic was thrown out the window as the liquid started to harden, turning into a transparent, crystal like material with that same orange glow to it that the water had had. The golden ring at the end of the string was half inside the crystal, keeping it attached to it.

 

Witnessing this, _very honestly_ threw Lance off so bad he lost his balance. He started falling backwards all the while the rest of the liquid hardened, turning into a tear shaped crystal while in mid air. It didn’t stay in that shape for long, though, as it crashed against the floor and shattered into thousands of small shards that flew everywhere.

 

That was when Lance noticed that there was a small orange flame, with the same shade as the lines, just floating slightly above the ground right where the crystal had shattered. It had been inside the crystal and was now left to float alone without the crystal around it to be it’s shelter. The brunet didn’t even register that the crystal hadn’t made any kind of sound when it had shattered, too baffled by this small flame to really think of anything else.

  


Suddenly, the flame was moving, and not just flickering like it had been doing before, it was straight up floating in circles for a bit before it out of nowhere flew towards Lance. A huge orange flame overtook everything around Lance, like making a protective, warm ball of flames around him. He held his breath, unable to move like he had been paralyzed.

 

There was a warm feeling in his chest, making him calm down, making sure he knew he had no reason to be afraid. And for some reason he believed this feeling, not doubting it for a second. He leaned forward after finally gaining back his ability to move and exactly then, the feeling in his chest changed. It started to burn his insides with intense force like something was trying to force its way into him. He couldn’t yell out in pain, his mouth opening in a voiceless scream of agony as tears rose to his eyes.

 

The feeling of something forcing itself inside him didn’t fade but Lance felt himself getting used to the pain which made it almost undetectable, like it was starting to become part of him. He opened his eyes and noticed the flames around him had turned blue, a beautiful blue reminding him of how the ocean reflected the sky. And then all of the feeling from before was gone.

 

The flames disappeared, too, poofing out like they had never even been there and Lance felt his voice coming back to him while he tried to catch his breath, the whole ordeal had left him breathless without him really knowing why. He quickly rubbed his eyes, wiping away the tears that has formed there.

 

Lance needed a short moment to process everything, to take in what had just happened, but wasn’t given any time to do so as the box, which had held the crystal liquid inside it, fell to the floor with a loud thump. Horror filled the latino’s insides as he heard shuffling from the general direction of Alise, panic rising to his chest, eating him away.

 

Alise carefully but quickly made his way to Lance, who was still sitting on the floor, frozen in place once again but this time from fear. He looked up at the woman, as she arrived next to him. He tried studying her expressions. She stared back at him, her eyes never stopping their small movement as she tried to see if there were any injuries on Lance.

 

“Are you alright? You didn’t get hurt, did you?” Alise asked, her tone soft, soothing the brunet from his own internal panic just slightly.

 

She kneeled down next to Lance to check if he had any injuries somewhere where she couldn’t see from her previous position. The brunet shook his head quickly, remembering that he should actually answer the question asked from him and Alise let out a sigh of relief, letting her arms lazily slump to her sides.

 

“Good. Now what did you drop?” Alise had more of just asked that out loud, more to herself, not trying to get Lance to answer her.

 

Her gaze swept over the floor around them and she ended up noticing the small black chest first. With a swift movement, she reached for the chest that was no open, facing the floor. She looked at it for a while, turning it around in her hands to see every part of it and then her brows furrowed in confusion.

 

“I don’t remember having this box. Huh, well, it doesn’t seem worth that much, anyway.”

 

_Maybe not but the crystal inside it is probably worth thousands_ , Lance’s brain helpfully supplied and he cursed under his breath. _Great. Just what I needed. A debt to some random lady._

 

As Lance was having an existential crisis,  Alise’s eyes darted to where the crystal had crashed against the floor. She moved her arm to pick something up from this spot.

 

Lance followed her movement but didn’t dare to look at the shattered shards of the crystal. He studied Alise’s reaction as she scanned the golden string, which Lance didn’t remember letting go of, with curiosity and puzzlement.

 

“Well,” Alise started and put the string into the now empty chest, closing it as it lay on her lap, before she looked at Lance, “don’t worry about it. I won’t make you pay for it.”

 

Lance’s eyes went wide but this went unnoticed by Alise since she had already got up to move back to the counter. The brunet was trying to process and failing to do so, then whipping his head back to look at where the shards were. Well, one crucial fact, _there were no shards there_. Lance started scanning the ground for the shards but, nothing. They were gone like they never even were there, just like the flames. He didn’t know if he should feel relieved or worried.

 

Lance shot up from his spot after he heard Alise calling out to him. He decided that instead of trying to come up how the shards could have just poofed out of existence, it was better to just brush it off as an illusion, as a trick of his mind. Maybe he had inhaled a little bit too much of the dust here and it was messing with his head. _Yeah, that’s what it was._

 

Alise was waiting for Lance by the counter with some cleaning supplies which he gladly took. He would take anything to help him forget what had just happened. He gave a quick smile when he noticed Alise’s concerned expression. This seemed to calm her concerns a bit, if the smile she got on her face was anything to go by.

 

Lance put on the plastic gloves he was offered and got ready to start dusting until there was not even a trace of dust left, letting any weird events slip from his mind as he got determined to clean as much as he could.

 

**\-----**

 

Time passed by quite quickly when Lance’s thoughts were just on getting _every_ _damn_ corner spotless. Soon the sun was already setting as if to inform that the day was ending and it was about time for the brunet to start heading home.

 

As the pale orange sunlight made its way through the window, bathing Lance in the last rays of sun, the latino turned to look at Alise who was working next to him.

 

The woman turned to Lance and then glanced at the windows where the last of the day was pouring its light into the shop. She shaded her eyes with her hand and smiled. She started pulling off her gloves, that way messaging Lance they were done for the day.

 

The two of them made their way to the counter where Alise rummaged through the top drawer while Lance waited a few steps away. It took awhile but soon she was handing Lance the 60 dollars that he had been promised for this job. He smiled at her and took the money with a quiet _‘thanks’_ which to she replied with a wide grin and a nod.

 

“I can come help tomorrow, too, if you need me to,” Lance carefully suggested but Alise just shook her head, smiling at the kind offer.

 

“No need. We got a lot done today that I can easily manage the rest on my own tomorrow. Thanks for the offer, though.”

 

Lance wanted to help more and felt like he hadn’t done enough but Alise had already started to shoo him out of the door. And before he could even open his mouth again, he was outside of the shop and Alise was waving at him from the entrance of the shop. He waved back before the door closed, hiding Alise behind it, and the _‘closed’_ sign clopped against it.

 

He stared at the sign for a while, tilting his head so it was aligned with the slightly crooked sign. His lips curled up into a smile as he closed his eyes and stepped away from the door, stuffing the dollar bills into the front pocket of his jeans. He made his way down the road to his bike while humming in a carefree way, all the weird occurances from before gone from his mind.

 

**\-----**

 

Keith stared at his adoptive older brother, Takashi Shirogane, with curious eyes as he stared down at a letter with golden markings and a silver seal on it. The younger one knew for sure it was from his brother’s employers. Which was exactly why Shiro’s face falling and his eyes filling with worry caused Keith to assume the worst.

 

_Did someone catch me sneaking around the Gate and was now informing Shiro? But why wouldn’t they just confront me themselves? Or maybe it’s something totally different?_

 

The moment Shiro was pacing around the room in such stressful mindset that he started floating slightly above the ground, Keith had to slam his hands down on the counter he had been leaning against. This snapped the older one from his distress and he lost his balance, very ungracefully falling to the floor with a quiet _‘oof’_.

 

“So,” Keith started, easily jumping over the counter with a bit of help from a quick, whispered floating spell, “what’s got you stressed enough to float?”

 

It was nothing new for people of the same kind as Shiro, usually called floating spellcasters or floatsers for short, to start floating when they were under immense stress or worry. They even floated straight up when feeling extremely happy.

 

Keith wasn’t a floatser so he needed the help of a floating spell if he wanted or had the need to float. But it wasn’t any high level spell, so casting it wasn’t even hard.

 

Keith offered Shiro his hand, which he gratefully took, and helped him up from the ground. He tried to sneak a peek at the letter with golden writing but his brother was too smart for that, quickly turning away to neatly hide the letter into the chest pocket of the black button-up he was wearing. Keith let his lips form into a pout but his face didn’t stay that way for long. His brother was always weak against his pouting face.

 

“Well,” Shiro took a breath, his tone indicating that this letter wasn’t about Keith, which the said boy thanked every deity for, “there has been a strong energy burst in Areth. But not just any kind of energy. It was without a doubt some kind of magic energy, raw one at that.”

 

Keith felt his breath get caught into his throat and for a moment long enough to make anyone worried for their health, he couldn’t seem to breathe. Magic energy was one thing, many _stupid_ magic users had many times got caught using magic in Areth. But _raw_ magic energy? That could only mean that some human had gained magic abilities. But that was impossible, _right_?

 

The dark haired boy couldn’t help when he turned to his brother with a helpless expression, all the fear fueled thoughts swirling in his head with way too much speed, making him slightly dizzy. Even Shiro looked lost and that did nothing to calm Keith and his thoughts which just got stronger by every passing second.

 

A magic using human was unheard of but if that was the case, they couldn’t just leave it at that and ignore it. A person with magical abilities would be a danger to many humans and to the secrecy of magical creatures. The only way to handle the situation correctly was to get this magic using human into Oreas and then figure everything out from there.

 

**\-----**

 

Lance couldn’t help but feel a bit strange when he very clearly remembered falling asleep in his room but, now that he woke up, he was met with an unfamiliar ceiling.

 

The ceiling was dark, looking like it had made of some kind of sky blue stone that had been polished so one could literally see their own, slightly distorted reflection from it. He stared at his reflection but couldn’t make any details in it, only his general shape.

 

_Yep, not my ceiling._

 

After staring at this unfamiliar ceiling for a while, Lance moved, just then noticing that he was laying on something soft. Like a bed. The cushions under him felt like the ones he was used to but made very little noise, unlike his own sheets, as he rolled and squirmed in the bed for few minutes.

 

_Well, now I know this is definitely not my room._

 

Lance sat up and turned his eyes to the bed he was now sitting on. It looked like the bed had come straight out of the medieval times, only the actual cushions didn’t look like they had escaped from those tv-shows Lance used to binge watch with his siblings and cousins.

 

He stared at the wine red cushions for a while, running his hands gently against them as he tried to figure out what kind of material they were made of. He couldn’t get far with his research when a someone very sharply cleared their throat. The noise being so close it allerted the latino’s whole attention.

 

Lance looked up to his right where the noise had come from and he had to hold back a squeak when he was met with very clear blue eyes staring straight at him. He immediately moved his hands up out of habit to fix the bed head he was very obviously sporting.

 

The eyes belonged to a woman with a long white, almost silver hair that was contrasted by her dark skin. Her eyebrows that were furrowed over her eyes mirrored her hair with their colour.

 

She was very clearly staring at Lance, or more like observing him. She was doing it from an obvious distance, like she was just a bit afraid of getting too close to him.

 

The brunet had to have a double take on this woman. She was strikingly beautiful and he really needed a moment until he’d finally manage to tear his eyes away from this beauty standing only few steps away from him. Now he was very obviously trying to fix his hair to be a little bit more presentable.

 

When he finally tore his eyes away, awkwardly glancing at the wall behind him, that looked identical to the ceiling. He was starting to feel slightly uncomfortable from being stared at without any explanation as to where he was and who this woman even was.

 

Lance, setting his eyes on the woman again, moved his mouth to ask a question, or questions, but no voice came out. He attempted to speak again but the same thing happened. He had no voice but the woman didn’t seem too surprised by it, she looked like she was expecting it, or more like she knew that he couldn’t speak. But Lance knew he could, he had done it many times before.

 

After his fifth attempt at speaking and failing completely, with not even a single noise coming out, he snapped his mouth shut, deciding that trying to speak was getting him nowhere. _This is my life now._

 

The woman didn’t react in any of his movements, she just stared at him, her body unmoving. Despite this weird behaviour, Lance knew she had to be alive since he could see her body move with even breaths and her eyes moving as she studied his features.

 

_With all honesty_ , this staring was making him just a bit self-conscious but it wasn’t like he could say anything about it. _Not being able to speak and all that crap._

 

Suddenly, the door, that Lance just now noticed, flew open and two new people made their way into the room. He tried to take a quick minute to admire the door’s design with its golden marking but his attention was stolen, just in the matter of seconds, by the people who had just barged in.

 

One of them, the one who came to Lance’s vision first, had a black undercut with a white tuft of hair in the front that kind of covered the long scar that cut the bridge of his nose. His eyes were dark and sharp but held some gentleness to them.

 

He was wearing a dark grey, almost dark enough to be considered black, buttoned up vest over a white shirt that had puffy sleeves that stopped below his elbows. His long trousers matched his vest both in colour and (probably) material, though Lance couldn’t tell for sure since he didn’t really know what material they were but they looked very similar. The man’s shoes were kind of weird looking since the ends curved up just slightly.

 

The shoes reminded Lance of the pictures of elves from the old fairy tale books he had read since they always seemed to wear those kinds of shoes, just not in black like the man had. Also no elf had been as tall as he was or as muscular and attractive.

 

_Was I kidnapped by a bunch of models?_

 

Lance let his eyes roam over this person, noting down every little detail, from the obviously toned chest to the prosthetic right arm he had. It piqued his interest, waking up many question inside of his mind. But he didn’t have that long of a time to dwell on his discovery, and the curiosity it had brought, when a sharp, loud yelp from an unfamiliar source drew his attention away from the man with prosthetic arm.

 

Lance’s gaze traveled to the source of the voice but he was only met with a backside of a boy(?) who was most certainly shorter than him and had long, dark hair that was long enough to reach his shoulder and kind of resembled a mullet.

 

This boy was wearing some kind of long, deep red coat made of some thin material. Though more than a coat, it looked like a long vest since it didn’t have any sleeves. It also looked quite ancient, with the red fading a little from some parts.

 

The brunet managed make out the sunset orange, long sleeved shirt he was wearing under the vest. His legs, that were moving furiously like he was struggling to move forward, were covered up with what looked like black tight jeans. That was when Lance finally noticed why the boy was struggling, his wrist was in the tight grip of- _a white armour_.

 

There were two _very obviously_ empty armours standing next to the boy, one blocking his path to go further than the the entrance and the other holding him by his wrist. There was an almost inaudible growl from the boy as he kept on struggling to get past the armours but neither of them even reacted to his tugs and kicks.

 

The man with the prosthetic arm went to the boy’s aid the moment he noticed this step back. His lips moved as he said something to the armours but Lance was too far to catch what was being said and he wasn’t any good when it came to lip reading. He just stared at the scene laid before him, feeling just a bit terrified but also intrigued from this foreign concept of _living_ armours that were capable of understanding speech.

 

After the armours seemed to consider what they had just been told for a couple of minutes, they finally came to a decision and released the boy to let him proceed, stepping back to their position on both sides of the door and returning to staying still like normal armours.

 

The boy huffed at them and kicked the ground like he was very close to throwing a fit. His eyes didn’t leave the armours like he was suspicious of them trying to stop him from proceeding for the second time.

 

The man made his way to the woman who looked a bit upset while glancing at the boy, like she was upset to see him standing there, still glaring at the armours with the intensity of a sun.

 

The man started explaining something to her but he was talking in a hushed tone so the only thing Lance could hear were whispers of gibberish. Or maybe what they were actually talking in some foreign language, something else than spanish or english which were two languages Lance could speak fluently, making it sound like gibberish.

 

The woman glanced at the boy again, having moved her eyes off of the boy to the person who was talking to her. For a while she seemed to consider something, tilting her head just slightly. She then looked back at the man still cautiously staring at her, waiting for her approval, and nodded affirmatively. Her eyes still held a small hint of disapproval, though.

 

The man gestured at the boy, catching his attention and so distracting him from staring a hole through the armours.

 

The _moment_ this boy with dark, long-ish ( _he did have a fucking mullet!)_ hair turned around, Lance lost his ability to breathe. _Breathing who?_

 

Yeah _,_ the woman was beautiful and the man was attractive but this boy was just straight up _gorgeous_.

 

His eyes were purple, _fucking purple,_ but in some angles the lights made his eyes look a bit darker and they adapted a bit of a bluer shade to them. It was like looking at the early night sky. _Who the fuck trapped the dusk into this boy’s eyes?_

 

His skin was pale, which was only contrasted by his dark hair that curled around his face, framing it while the rest of his bangs tried to hide his striking eyes. Lance had a sudden urge to push back those dark bangs to marvel those beautiful eyes more.

 

That was when Lance noticed that those eyes _of gods_ were now looking straight at him, trapping him so he was helplessly frozen in place as if time has stopped for him. He was stuck looking at the dark eyes that moved just slightly as they studied his face, he didn’t even dare to breathe properly.

 

When the dark gaze finally moved on from Lance to the other two in the room, he found his ability to move and breathe again.  

The brunet hadn’t even noticed the other two staring at him but when he took a deep breath, he felt two pairs of eyes on him. He paid them no mind, however, since he was busy returning his heart beat back to its normal rhythm.

 

There was a moment of silence before somebody finally opened their mouth to talk. But before anyone could actually say anything out loud, the man gave the boy and the woman a pointed look, as if warning them to not say anything rude.

 

After letting out a deep sigh that just reeked of _‘okay dad’_ -vibes, the boy finally spoke up. “This is the source of the energy? For sure?”

 

He was looking a bit sceptical when he quickly glanced at Lance but the brunet also caught a hint of annoyance. Not that he managed to pay it much mind because his mind was racing with the thoughts of how deep and raspy but still adorable the boy’s voice was.

 

The woman gave an affirmative nod, the movement catching everyone else’s attention, even Lance’s since he managed to recover from his fascination with the boy’s voice faster than from being stared at.

 

“Yes. We are very certain of it.” The woman answered with professional manner, her accent sounding like a modified version of the british accent.

 

“But he’s like, what, 15! We thought it could be possible, though the possibility was one in a trillion, that a human could gain magic abilities at birth, so, how come this teenager suddenly gains the ability to use magic?” the boy spat out like Lance’s whole existence was an outrage and a personal attack on him.

 

The boy’s words confused Lance since he had no idea what he was talking about but at the same time he felt insulted by the age assumption.

 

“Um, not to interrupt but I look like I’m at least 17, which, by the way, is indeed my actual age!” Lance stated, glaring at the boy, mentally taking back all the compliments he had voiced in his head about this dark haired mullet-boy.  

 

The boy looked baffled at first but then glared back, looking ready to jump into a hand-to-hand combat if given the opportunity.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” he growled, turning back to the other two in the room, scowling and crossing his arms.

 

Lance kept glaring at him, ignoring the side of him that thought the boy looked kind of cute with his lips pursed together into an angry scowl. _Shut up brain, he’s an asshole._

 

“The thing is,” the woman started, catching Lance’s attention, with the others’, back to herself, “we don’t know how he gained his abilities.”

 

That was when the tall man cleared his throat rather loudly, catching the attention of everyone in the room expect the armours who seemed to be not coming back alive again for a while. “We could _ask_ him how it happened.”

 

The boy’s eyes widened as he turned to look at Lance, first time with something else on his face than annoyance, with his mouth in a little _oh_ shape while the woman eyed him curiously. Then she straightened herself and took on a look that Lance could only describe as a gaze that stabbed right into his heart and found all his deepest secrets. It was intimidating and would get Lance to admit anything he was asked of for sure.

 

“How did you gain magic energy?”

 

The question sounded so simple, like someone asking him who was the best superhero, _the answer of course being Marvel’s Deadpool_ , but Lance couldn’t feel anything else than plain confusion.

 

“As much as I would like to answer the question, I, um, have no idea what this ‘magic energy’; that you are talking about, is,” Lance stated honestly which seemed like the wrong choice if the reactions to his confession were anything to go by.

 

The moment Lance’s words seemed to be processed by all the three individuals before him, all of them looked purely shocked. The boy even looked kind of ready to strangle Lance if he did so much as moved his mouth again.

 

“What do you mean you _don’t know_?!” the boy all but screamed, throwing his hands into the air in a frustrated manner.

 

“I mean exactly what I said,” Lance stated, trying to ignore the small hint of fear he suddenly felt, seeing those burning eyes directed at him, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

 

While the woman and the boy seemed to lose it at his reply, now both of them looking ready to strangle him, the man stepped forward towards him in a more friendlier manner. _Bless his soul._

 

“On Saturday, meaning yesterday, around 10 am, what happened?” the man asked him, his voice seeping with kindness but still holding a strictness to it that informed Lance that he needed to answer truthfully.

 

At first Lance could only think of how much that question resembled the ones he had heard people ask in all those murder mystery tv-shows Lance had binge watched out of boredom. One of the most cliche lines, in his opinion.

 

The man’s raised an eyebrow when Lance hadn’t yet answered. This small action snapped Lance’s attention back on the matter at hand and he quickly recapped yesterday morning’s happenings, his mouth starting to move as the memories came in.

 

“I was at work. Well, it was only one day deal that a friend offered for me. 60 dollars for one day of cleaning is a pretty good deal, right?” Lance answered, his answer apparently being too rambly to the taste of the two standing behind the man, their impatience shining through.

 

The dark haired boy furrowed his eyebrows in disapproval and Lance gave him a glare back before softening his eyes and returning his whole attention back to the man now sitting in front of him so they were on the same eye level. This eased Lance’s growing anxiety somewhat.

 

“And at that time, I had just arrived to the old antique shop I had to help cleaning with. I started looking around and while I was, I found this… box. It was a bit weird and didn’t look like it belonged to an antique shop so I decided to investigate. Inside that box… was this weird liquid. And a golden string! I took the golden string and… um.”

 

Lance took a breath, stropping as the events he had decided to brush off returned clearly into him mind. He glanced at the three, not really wanting to give them the impression of being crazy. This didn’t seem like a situation where he could sound like he was just making things up. Not that he was, since he had a clear memory of the liquid turning into a jewel in his mind.

 

He was about to back down from telling the truth when he looked at the man’s eyes staring back at him. They were encouraging him to go on, looking so open and friendly that Lance felt a small boost of confidence source through his insecurities. That still didn’t stop him from looking down at his hands that were fiddling on his lap.

 

“Then the liquid moved with the string and then it hardened into this crystal, taking the shape of a tear with this orange flame looking thing inside-”

 

Lance’s explanation was interrupted by a sudden, sharp gasp. He looked up at the source of the voice, not being the only one as he noticed the man turning around a bit to see what was happening behind him. The woman, too, had his eyes on the source now, no longer peering through Lance.

 

The all stared at the boy whose eyes had gone wide as he stared right at Lance. Usually the brunet would’ve been ecstatic to have an attractive person staring at him but this time it only managed to bring the wave of insecurity to come back to drown the confidence that had just surfaced.

 

_Maybe my story was a bit too weird_ -

 

“What happened to that crystal?” the boy outright demanded with his voice a bit louder than normally appropriate. “What happened to it?!”

 

Lance’s eyes widened, out of fear or out of shock, he didn’t know. He had been expecting accusatory for making up things but not this. This desperation the boy held in his eyes, scanning Lance’s expression like it would give him an answer quicker than his words.

 

Lance thought back to the events in his memory and now he was certain what he was feeling was fear. He couldn’t be certain but he had a feeling the boy wouldn’t like his answer. But despite it all, he took a deep breath and got his answer ready on his tongue.

 

“It shattered. It crashed against the floor and shattered.”

 

There was a moment of silence, the heavy kind that Lance had always hated. He could feel everyone in the room tense up and he was half ready to just shut his mouth forever and never let another slip out. He even heard the man move to look at him and his gaze felt like a dagger striking through Lance.

 

“And then the flame inside of it moved towards me… and suddenly- suddenly everything was covered in orange flames. And then- then… the flames turned to blue. And then- it was gone. I don’t know how it-”

 

Lance didn’t get to say anything in his defence. He didn’t get a chance to explain that he hadn’t understood the situation and still didn’t. He didn’t get another word from his mouth when a sharp, accusing _what_ cut through the air.

 

By now Lance knew the voice of the dark haired boy’s and knew without looking up that he was more than outraged. So, he didn’t look up, gluing his gaze to his hands that he was clenching together on his lap so hard that his knuckles were slowly turning white. He could feel the purple eyes he had admired before trying to burn holes through his skull. He _wouldn’t_ _dare_ to look up.

 

The man, not matching Lance’s fear despite being on the radius of that deadly glare filled with rage, turned to the boy again. This movement caught Lance’s eye and he quickly peeked up. He looked back down again when he saw Keith’s eyes burning and his expression screaming that he was ready to rip Lance apart.

 

“Keith, do you mind explaining?” the man asked, as softly as he could without going unheard. He was obviously trying to calm down the boy but also trying to get clear answers.

 

The boy, called Keith apparently, growled under his breath, indicating that he wasn’t planning on answering the man. The low predator-like noise caught Lance’s attention but he didn’t look up until he noticed the crimson red flames swirling around the boy’s feet.

 

This made Lance jump back, drawing his legs back onto the bed as an embarrassingly high pitched squeak. His gaze darted up, searching for those purple eyes. It wasn’t that hard to find them when they were staring straight at him like he was the only person in the room, which would have been flattering it they weren’t also filled with pure want to rip Lance’s throat out.

 

The flames grew in size and Lance started to scan over Keith’s face, his sudden need to _help_ overthrowing most of his fear. He noted that the more agony, or rage, he wasn’t sure, took on Keith’s face, the bigger he flames grew. There also were small traces of flames in the boy’s hair and shoulders, though they were notably smaller than the ones at his feet.

 

The man stood up in panic, causing Lance’s attention to move from the boys face back on the floor and suddenly fear was overtaking all other emotions again.

 

The red flames were still growing but they were also moving closer to Lance. They were approaching him with fast, swift movements without even the usual rattling a burning flame made. They were just close enough to start burning up the bed, to reach Lance and burn him next, when a loud yell cut their movement off.

 

“Keith!” the man yelled, breaking through the air. His tone was commanding like a sergeant talking to an unobedient soldier. _Terrifying._

 

Keith only winced at the tone, but the flames started to slowly draw back away from where Lance was sitting. Soon they were totally gone, no sign of any burns on the floor they had touched or on the boy’s face where the flames in his hair had licked.

 

Lance drew a sigh of relief while his brain was filled with millions of questions regarding to what he had just witnessed happening. He didn’t have much time to try and find a logical answer to even one of the questions when his thoughts were cut off by someone’s -- Keith’s -- voice.

 

“That- he broke the Tear of Seradyth!” Keith screeched, his voice not having the same kind of menacing tone to it that it had before. It was instead filled with vulnerability hidden by rage. This made something inside Lance sting. “All that time! I’ve been searching for it and this- this human just strolls in, breaks it and absorbs its powers!”

 

Lance could hear every crack in Keith’s voice, see the pure helplessness in his face and posture. The stinging inside of him grew stronger. So many words were bubbling inside of him, wanting to surface, to fly out of his mouth. They wanted to reach Keith and tell him how sorry Lance was and how he never wanted this to happen. But nothing came out, his lips stayed tightly together as he stared back at those purple eyes one again, this time the eye contact being different.

 

The annoyance from Keith’s eyes had been replaced with plain hatred that had a small twinkle of hurt smashed inside of it. The brunet felt himself miss that annoyed look when he felt chills run down his spine.

 

They held their eye contact for a while, this time feeling nothing like the first time despite Lance feeling difficulties in breathing again. Neither turned away, Lance incapable of and Keith unwilling of doing so.

 

No one in the room said anything or even moved, like they were waiting for something to happen, for the situation to change. And that something happened, changing the very atmosphere in the room.

 

Without another word, Keith broke eye contact with Lance and stormed out of the room, not looking back. The armours didn’t react in anyway when the door was ripped open and the dark haired boy took off running through the entrance. The running steps faded slowly until they were fully gone.

 

Lance subconsciously raised his hands to his mouth, covering it with them as a choked noise escaped him. All he could think of was the silhouette of Keith going further and further away and the small hint of tears the brunet had noticed rising to the boy’s eyes before he had turned around. It took everything in Lance to not let his thoughts out with a burst of tears.

 

The woman looked shocked, like he had just witnessed something unnatural happen. She turned towards the man who was looking at the door with worry in his dark, almost black, grey eyes. This expression of his was taken as a hint for the woman to not ask any questions about the incident that she had just witnessed.

 

The man shook his head, clearing his throat before turning to face Lance again. There was a crooked smile on his lips and a welcoming curtain over the worry he felt in his eyes.

 

“Well, I guess welcome aboard. Allura can explain you the whole thing,” the man gestured at the woman, apparently called Allura, who nodded, her features looking a bit softer than before.

 

Allura had obviously built herself up from the utter shock that had been clear on her face before since she showed no signs of even feeling so in the first place.

 

This sudden social interaction managed to distract Lance from his inner self blame that had plagued his mind. He shot a quick smile at both Allura and the man who both mirrored his expression in their own ways.

 

“I need to go after Keith now but, I’m Takashi Shirogane but mostly referred to as Shiro. Nice to meet you, um-” the man, called Shiro, added, eyeing Lance a bit sheepishly as he realized he hadn’t even asked for the latino’s name.

 

“Lance. Lance McClain. Nice to meet you, Shiro!” Lance quickly supplied to save Shiro from more worry.

 

They shook hands quickly, nodding at each other, before Shiro moved away from Lance to face Allura.

 

After giving Allura an apologetic smile and a wave, Shiro was out of the room, leaving Lance with this seemingly strict, leader type woman and those two weird armours that came alive sometimes.

 

The brunet couldn’t but get a feeling of dread going off inside of him as he was in a place he didn’t know with a somewhat scary woman he didn’t know. To top it all off, he didn’t even know what was going on anymore, not that he had really known at any point after waking up in this strange room. But as Allura took a seat next to him on the bed he was still sitting on, he was quite certain he would soon find out.

 

**\-----**

 

Keith stormed on, not really knowing where he was even heading. He knew these chambers like the back of his hand but in his rage filled mind everything he knew turned into a red mush. He was pretty sure his fingers were burning with the red flames that tended to surface whenever his feelings were uncontrollable. _It wasn’t that fun, being a flame caster (or flamester for short)._

 

It wasn’t like Keith noticed, but the halls were lacking in armours, meaning no one was going to stop him. It was lonely and quiet in the hallway, the only sound filling the silence being his rapid breathing and loud stomps as he went on without looking back to make sure he knew where he was.

 

After a while of just aimless walking, he finally came to a stop. He whipped around, his hair floating in the air a bit as he did, and angrily punched the wall so hard it cracked. He punched it once more for good measure before screaming out like it would help him in anyway. His voice was loud, bouncing off the walls and echoing in the almost empty hallway.

 

His heavy breathing noisily made its way out of his mouth and nose, his chest falling and rising in an irregular manner as he stared at the mark his punch had made on the blue-ish grey wall.

 

Keith stared at the wall in an almost perfect silence until he screamed again, this time it being much weaker. It made him sound so easily breakable and vulnerable and he _hated_ it.

 

His throat felt kind of soar from the screaming and yelling but he wasn’t about to care that his throat was burning, demanding him to stay quiet for even a while. But he still didn’t attempt to scream again, he couldn’t find it himself to do so when something swept his strength away from him, making his whole posture falter.

 

It didn’t take long for Keith’s legs to start shaking after the loss of any strength he’d had, and soon they betrayed him, causing him to slump onto the floor.

 

He gritted his teeth, trying to hold in the sobs he could feel surfacing. He couldn’t stop them however and the first broken sob escaped his lips soon to be followed by many more. It only took a short moment for Keith to began sobbing uncontrollably, with no sign of stopping, his shoulders twitching at every quick inhale of breath he managed between the sobs.

 

“I just- I just-!” he tried to talk but couldn’t as the pain in his throat and the heavy sobs cut him off before he could even form a sentence, not that he had formed one inside of his head anyway.

 

Keith hiccupped when he opened his eyes to see the wet droplets of tears falling to the rocky floor below his knees. This made him even more frustrated and he lifted his hands to push them against his eyes with as much force as he could muster at that moment. Anything to make the tears stop.

 

_Stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

 

“Stop crying, god dammit!” he straight out screeched, which his throat protested to by hurting like he had just been straight up stabbed into the throat with many small needles.

 

He wanted to scream more but as he couldn’t with all the protest from his throat, he once again punched the wall. He knew it wasn’t the wall’s fault that he was crying but he needed something to throw his frustration at, to get it out of his system as quickly as possible. Punching seemed to be the best for that purpose.

 

Keith was angry to find out, for maybe the third time in his life, that tears just didn’t stop at one’s command. He decided, in major frustration and self-loathing, to slam his head against the wall. It hurt a lot but the pain now on his forehead felt nothing compared to the flames of rage burning inside of his stomach but it was enough to distract him a bit.

 

Just then Keith noticed his knuckles stinging disapprovingly of his ways to deal with these kinds of feelings. He just scoffed at them, gripping onto the fabric of his pants, digging his nails into his thighs. He clenched his right fist tightly, his other hand laying useless at his side, while staring down at it until his knuckles lost their red bruise like shade and turned white. That didn’t cover the actual bruises and scars but it didn’t matter to the dark haired boy.

 

For a while he just kept his fist clenched while staring down at it. He was debating on if he should try a healing spell or just use the normal way of cleaning up bruises. He decided to go with the latter since he couldn’t find it in himself to remember the healing spell anyway.

 

His nails slipped from the cloth into his palm and he felt a sudden sharp pain inside against the palm of the hand he was clutching tightly. He yelped at the sudden pain before carefully and slowly opening his hand to see what had caused the pain. He was met with bleeding nail marks on his palm and his slightly longer and sharper (than normal) nails.

 

_Fucking curse. Fucking fate making me like this. Fucking mom who was never around but still managed to get me into her problems._

 

This sight wasn’t unusual to Keith but he still hated it everytime it happened. Everytime his body showed any sign of the curse being active, he wished he could hide away from everything and everyone. He never wanted to go through someone pointing out his sharper nails, more yellow eyes or purple marks on his skin in disgust again. He hated it all so much.

 

Keith was about to punch the wall again but then he felt a solid but familiar hand take a hold of his arm, wrapping securingly around his wrist, stopping his every movement with its firm grip. He turned to look to his right and, through his teary eyes, he could make out Shiro’s blurry figure. The feeling of relief washed through him when he saw his older brother’s grey eyes looking at him reassuringly.

 

“Hey, I’m here,” Shiro spoke softly, slowly releasing his grip on Keith’s wrist, glancing at it just to make sure it didn’t move towards the wall again, to open his arms so his younger brother could hug him if he so wanted.

 

The boy immediately crashed into Shiro, wrapping his arms around his torso, burying his face into his shoulder. Like that he felt safe, he always had.

 

That was when he started sobbing again, this time without feeling like he shouldn’t. He still felt a little stupid for crying but he knew Shiro wouldn’t judge him but would hide him from anyone who would.

 

“Shh, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” the older man added while gently rubbing Keith’s upper back in a soothing manner, knowing this would calm his brother down.

 

Keith let his sobs be muffled by Shiro’s shoulder while he tried to recollect himself. He was also subtly willing his sharpened nails to return back to normal. And they did eventually return back to their original shape and structure.

 

After the tears finally seemed to calm down, leaving him with just puffy eyes, a runny nose and a slight headache, he hesitantly pulled back.

 

The arms around him loosened and Shiro let him go easily but the man still kept up the open posture, just incase Keith had the need for another reassuring hug from his older brother. He also let Keith calm down a little before speaking up about the matter from before.

 

“Wanna explain to me why you, out of all people, were looking for the Tear of Seradyth?” Shiro asked but made sure, with his tone, that Keith knew he didn’t have to answer if he couldn’t or didn’t want to.

 

“I-” Keith got cut off as his voice cracked just slightly and he had to clear his throat to able to continue, “I wanted to use the all-healing magic inside it to cure… this.”

 

He gestured at himself with his hands, the dried blood from his nail bites catching his, and Shiro’s, attention as he did. He quickly hid his hand but his brother wasn’t about to give in that easily when he had spotted injuries on his _dear younger brother_.

 

Shiro took a hold of Keith’s arm again, pulling away from hiding to examine it. The younger boy opened his hand carefully, revealing the cuts that were painted with dried blood.

 

“We need to clean those. And your face.” Shiro stated in his _guardian_ voice without looking up from Keith’s bruised hand. He had also noticed the bruises Keith had on his knuckles and gave a disapproving head shake.

 

Keith scoffed at that, but it was more amused than anything. He always found it amusing when Shiro’s tone turned into one of a doting parent and it happened surprisingly frequently.

 

“And I don’t think you need to cure anything in yourself.” Shiro started and before Keith could argue like he always did, he continued, “I know how you feel about it all but you are just fine the way you are. You do know that, Keith?”

 

Shiro gave him a pointed look which Keith avoided by averting his eyes to look at the wall like it had just become the most interesting thing he had ever seen. He also drew his hand back and Shiro didn’t try to stop him.

 

There was a heavy sigh that filled the air between them and then shuffling as the man got up from the ground.

 

“Come on. Let’s get those bruises and your face cleaned,” Shiro said while offering his hand out for Keith to grab onto.

 

The younger took it with his uninjured hand to avoid more pain and was lifted up to his feet. He nodded with a hint of a smile playing on his lips as the two started making their way toward the closest staircase.


	2. The Rough Road Ahead of Us Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance learns a bunch of new things and meets new friends while Keith struggles with his impulsive actions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo chapter 2 is finally done, gj me
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it

Allura leaned forward, some of her long white hair falling over her shoulder as she did, to catch Lance’s wandering gaze. She succeeded but managed to startle Lance just slightly by doing so. Having a _prettier-than-average_ face right in front of a person was enough to cause anyone to jump.

 

“So, you just heard us talking about magic and you also saw some being used,” she spoke slowly and calmly, studying Lance’s face for any reactions, “How are you holding up?”

 

Lance blinked slowly after hearing the question because he hadn’t even thought that far into the whole ordeal after seeing the violet eyes that would hunt his dream look so sad. _Yeah_ , seeing those flames just appear out of nowhere had been kind of surprising but Lance had been totally distracted the guilt he had felt and the worry he had been filled with when Keith’s pain filled eyes landed on him.

 

“Quite honestly, not that good. But that’s not because of all this _‘magic’_ you speak of. I’m just kinda quilty because me breaking that crystal seemed pretty important to, uh,” Lance said, his tone turning quieter and more careful with every word. He knew Keith’s name but felt wary to use it since they technically didn’t know each other.

 

“Keith,” Allura helpfully supplied though she probably meant to fill in because she thought Lance didn’t know the boy’s name, not that the latino was about to go out of his way to correct this assumption.

 

“Yeah, him,” Lance replied, looking down at his feet while clenching and unclenching his fists that were hovering just above his thighs.

 

The floor under them looked wooden but not any that Lance knew of. It distracted him just for a while before he was back on track, replaying the events from before in his head.

 

Silence took over between them for a while as Allura seemed to ponder Lance’s answer. After a bit of just silence, she clapped her hands to catch Lance’s attention. This kind of ended up startling him, _for the second time_ , but Allura didn’t seem to notice or just decided to dismiss it.

 

“Alright. Let me explain some things to you which you are most likely curious of!” she stated in a cheerful manner, clasping her hands together, “Where should I start? Hmm. Ah! Maybe I should explain why you are here!”

 

“Yeah, that would be helpful,” Lance replied, feeling just a bit put off by this sudden change of topic, though he was honestly curious, “and also what _here_ exactly is would be helpful information, too.”

 

“Certainly!” Allura exclaimed, nodding in an understanding way as she changed her position to something, Lance guessed, that was better for long talks. Which he was pretty sure this was going to be.

 

“ _Here_ is an institution. Well, more of the chambers that reside under the actual institute. And before you ask what kind of institute; it’s for youngsters who need to learn how to use magic. Which you have also obtained the ability of using despite being a human,” Allura went on with her explanation like it was nothing out of ordinary. _Maybe this was her ordinary._

 

“You obtained those powers, from what I can deduce from your explanation, by accidentally breaking a very powerful magical object, Tear of Seradyth, and absorbing the magic energy it held within. There has never been a human with magical abilities before so this is very interesting-”

 

“Wait, hold up. What you are saying is… that I somehow have magic inside me now? I can float and do weird spells?” Lance voiced his questions, accidentally interrupting Allura but she didn’t seem to mind too much. She just smiled in a warm, fond way as she watched Lance spill out all those questions, as if she had witnessed something similar before.

 

“Yes. I know it’s a lot to take in and may shock you but do not worry, I’m here to help you as you try and figure this all out. So is Shiro. And a few others, I believe.” Allura explained, slowly starting to trail off like she was trying to count all the people who would be helping Lance while the boy himself was busy just processing this new information.

 

Lance blinked once. Twice. And then he shrieked, jumping up from the cough he had been sitting on, throwing his hands into the air in excitement. This time it was his actions startling Allura and not the other way around.

 

“Holy shit, I have magic powers!” was all he managed to say.

 

“They are more referred to as magic _abilities_ but precisely.” Allura corrected him, a somewhat excited smile gracing her lips as her eyes followed Lance’s movements curiously.

 

“This is really amazing! So, you have this hidden magic school for magic using people?”

 

Allura chuckled, shaking her head a bit. “No. It is not hidden, technically. And most of the people studying here go from the ages of 15 to 20.”

 

“What do you mean? Like by not being hidden” Lance took a short breath before adding, “technically.”  

 

Lance tilted his head in confusion because if the school wasn’t hidden, how had he never heard of it. He stared down at Allura who looked at him with a considering expression.

 

“Well, this might be a bit harder to explain.”

 

After a long explanation about a gate between two worlds, called Oreas and Areth, Lance couldn't help it when his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. The more he learnt the more confused he felt himself become. But at the same time he felt ecstatic.

 

“So, there are two worlds right next to each other, one of them being where all the humans are and the other being where all the magical creatures reside? And we’re in that latter world right now?” he asked eagerly just to make sure even if it was quite obvious after Allura’s long explanation.

 

The woman nodded, confirming everything Lance had asked previously and he couldn’t feel anything other than joy, having his body hum with excitement that he was trying to contain to seem just a bit professional about it _._ But the reality that he was in a world that was literally straight out of all those fantasy books he had been reading as a child was hitting him hard, making it hard to seem all cool and nonchalant about the whole thing.

 

“And, as a new magic user, usually referred to as a _spellcaster_ , you will be attending this institute as a student. To learn to use your abilities so you won’t be a danger to our secrecy or to the safety of other humans,” Allura explained but pretty much everything after ‘attending as student’ pretty much went over Lance’s head. Nothing was containing his ecstasy now.

 

“Seriously!? Oh my god, I can’t wait to tell my family! Jacob and Veronica are gonna be so excited!” Lance cheered, feeling very giddy, unable to stay still as he bounced about, making his way all around the room, not going too close to the doors, though. He was still kinda vary of the menacing armours standing there, guarding.  

 

“Excuse me but I might have to inform you that you shall not tell any human about any of this. And you cannot go back to Areth until you have a perfect control over your abilities.”

 

Lance stopped his cheering and moving at that, totally coming to a stop as he looked back at Allura whose lips held an apologetic smile. “What- what do you mean?”

 

“You are not allowed to leave Oreas until you graduate.” Allura stated matter of factly, making it clear to Lance that she wasn’t joking like he had hoped she was.

 

Suddenly Lance’s world was freezing over, all the warm excitement escaped the cold feeling that took over him. It felt like a frozen over boulder had dropped onto him, pulling his whole world to a stop with its weight.

 

Lance’s face dropped, all his features slumping down as he started to feel smaller and more tired than ever. Without even really noticing it, he started curling up on himself, the painful truth looming over him like a heavy weight.

 

“You mean, I can’t see my family, until I graduate?” he asked, his voice small and hushed, feeling scared of the answer he would get, “How long is that actually?”

 

A slight glimmer of hope filled him as the last question dropped from his lips. _Maybe it isn’t that long. Maybe it’s just a couple of months, a year?_

 

Allura downcasted her head to look at her hands that were resting on her lap, entwined together. She looked like she was searching for the right words, which was _never_ a good sign.

 

Something in Lance’s gut twisted, killing the glimmer of hope that had risen. _Oh._

 

“That would be three years, at its shortest.” Allura finally answered, not daring to look up at Lance who was very obviously staring down at her in disbelief and _pain_.

 

“Can’t I even return home just to tell them that I’ll be gone for a while?” Lance tried, even when the voice inside was telling him that it was hopeless.

 

Allura shook her head sadly, confirming what the voice inside had told and suddenly Lance’s world came crumbling down around him.

 

The latino felt his eyes start to sting with upcoming tears, those warm tears that would make his eyesight blur and taste like salt, like the ocean. It felt like something was suffocating him from the inside but he suppressed it the best he could, blinking away the tears that were daring to rise. He quickly looked away from Allura so she couldn’t see the pain in his eyes.

 

She tried to move closer to him, maybe to reassure or comfort him but he stepped back, giving her a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes. A smile to tell her that he was fine, that he didn’t need to be worried about.

 

_I’m not about to worry a person I just met._

 

Lance then started to recall what Allura had said about being a danger to those around him, _other humans_ , with his inability to control his abilities. He knew he had no other choice but to stay here and learn to control his abilities, even if it required three, _or more_ , years. He took in a sharp breath, holding in the tears that were still so stubbornly trying to surface and drop down.

 

“Alright. I understand. Please continue explaining.”

 

Allura looked like she wanted to do more, to ease Lance’s pain in some way but with every reassuring look she tried to send Lance’s way was answered to by the small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. She eventually just nodded, moving on to continue her explanation about how the school worked.

 

Lance tried his best to listen to her but the sting in his chest distracted him from paying full attention. _I’ll see them again. This isn’t for the rest of my life._

 

**\-----**

 

Lance looked around, curiously taking in everything around him. He was, according to Allura, in the hallways of the school’s dormitory and the two of them were walking through one of the long hallways. It must’ve been the third hallway Lance had seen today.

 

Each one of the dorm doors were identical in their design with their dark brown surface that was decorated with the same golden patterns as the huge door from the first room Lance had been in. The doors also had white name plates on them, many on different eye levels and every name had been written in some vibrant colour. The brunet assumed these colours to be random but something inside him was telling him otherwise. He decided to leave it for now so he could concentrate on scanning the doors.

 

Some doors had decorations on them, like paintings and sticker like things of creatures Lance had either only seen in fiction or never seen at all. One door even had a bell tied to its handle. Or at least he _assumed_ it was a bell from the way it looked. He didn’t dare to try if it was a bell by making it chime, though.

 

Finally Allura stopped walking and Lance automatically came to halt right next to her. She faced a door to their left that was only two doors from the window at the end of the hallway and, before Allura could even open her mouth, Lance was already running to the window.

 

He peeked out of the glassy square and was _totally_ not prepared for what he saw. The outside had a view of an average town very far down on the ground, _they were in a tall building after all_ , and further from the village resided a huge forest that was filled with trees Lance couldn’t name. His eyes trailed from the forest to a blue, water like wall at the edge of said forest and even beyond.

 

Someone clearing their throat caught Lance’s attention, drawing it away from the amazing view below, the amazing and _unknown_ view. His gaze traveled back to Allura who was patiently waiting for him so she could finally start to explain. He sheepishly made his way to the woman, throwing in a quick, mouthed _‘sorry’_.

 

“As I was about to say, this will be your room and you will have a roommate. Your name has already been put on the plate, too,” Allura explained, gesturing at the door and then at the plate on the right side of the door. It was right on Lance’s eye level. There, with a neat but gorgeous handwriting, were his first and last name, written in blue that he recognized to resemble to the shade his eyes were, _ocean blue_.

 

He moved his hand up, pressing his fingers against the white plate. It felt cold under his touch in a way metal felt after being left outside when it was -10 degrees celsius outside. He named the metal as _white silver_ _aka whilver_ in his head but decided to just keep the new name to himself.

 

His attention then sifted to the plate on the left side of the door. The other plate was a bit higher than Lance’s own but not by too much. It had _Hunk Garrett_ written on it with a bright and warm yellow and the same neat handwriting as his own. He examined both of the plates for a while as his brain tried to come up with ways to make the door to his dorm unique.

 

After listening to Allura’s explanations about how _most_ of the students lived in a side building, the dormitory,  that was connected to the school building by a bridge that apparently floated in air.

 

Lance had asked where the other students who didn’t live in the dormitory resided and Allura had happily announced that they usually lived in the town just next to the school. He recalled the few moment he had spared to watching the town and decided it was a decent place to live in.

 

Allura had also noted that there were no school uniforms which had let to a conversation about what clothes would Lance wear since he just had the pyjamas he was wearing with him. Allura had then assured him that his clothing side would be taken care of, leaving it at that and making Lance kind of confused by doing so.

 

As Lance was reviewing every little detail Allura had explained to him from sleeping hours to food related things, Allura opened the door with a blue key that had a small jewels all over it.

 

Lance noticed how the key looked just before his attention was caught by a soft breeze of air, brushing against his face and hair, coming through the now open door. He looked up and was met with a sight he would most likely remember all his life.

 

The door was open and gave Lance access to see what was inside. There was a small room with soft green walls that almost looked more blue than green at some point. It was like he was stepping underwater just with the ability to breathe as he stepped inside the room to take it all in.

 

Now that he was inside, he had a better sight of the room. It looked really cozy with two bean bags, other blue, other yellow, in the middle of the lounge room on a soft grass green carpet. Everything around was like a smash of soft yellows and blues, sometimes separate, sometimes mashed together into a green tint.

 

His gaze traveled from the few pieces of furniture, to the walls, to the ceiling, to the very decorated lamps and back to the walls where he stopped upon noticing a wide opening that was very obviously an entrance to a new room.

 

Lance felt eyes widen with awe as he moved on into the kitchen to find it was coloured in soft blues and yellows everywhere.

 

He didn’t have much time to study this new room when the new angle for things gave him a very clear view of two doors that were on the lefts wall of the previous room, a room he now deducted to be the lounge. The doors had the same name tags on them as the front door this time there was only one tag on one door.

 

As the brunet was about to start a closer inspection of these two doors, the left door opened and a person stepped out of it. The new person immediately froze completely as he noticed that he wasn’t alone.

 

Lance's eyes scanned him over in pure curiosity. He was wearing a yellow t-shirt that contrasted his dark tanned skin, some baggy cargo pants that reached over his knees and a yellow headband that had been wrapped around his head, causing his dark, semi long hair to be all over the place in messy manner. But it suited him and looked good, _no complaints_.

 

When the taller boy scanned Lance over, the brunet felt a bit embarrassed for just being in his plain pyjama shorts that didn’t really cover much of his legs and a t-shirt.

 

“Hello, Hunk. This is Lance,” Allura greeted, gesturing into Lance’s general direction, “your roommate. Lance. This is your roommate Hunk.”

 

Allura smiled warmly at the guy, Hunk, when he turned to her. The taller boy jumped just slightly which seemingly went unnoticed by Allura or she was used to this kinds of reactions. For a while the boy tried to gather himself to not seem so jumpy but he seemed just a tiny bit intimidated by her presence either way.

 

Lance couldn’t blame him for it, though, because he had found Allura intimidating when they first met. Though, to his defence, he had been unable to speak and had no clue where he was.

 

“Well, I should get going. If there are any troubles, Coran will be keeping an eye on you so just say his name and he’ll find you,” Allura stated, not noticing, or pretending not to notice, how nervous Hunk was with her presence.

 

She waved at both of the boys before taking her leave, closing the door behind her that had been open until now. And with that, Lance was left alone with Hunk.

 

“Hi, I’m McClain. Lance McClain,” Lance said while chuckling to himself a bit to break the silence, offering his hand for Hunk to shake.

 

As the other boy hesitated, eyeing Lance like he was something foreign, the brunet started to doubt if shaking hands was even a thing in this world. But, before he could act on these anxieties and pull his hand away before coming up with some excuse, Hunk shook his hand. Lance noted that his new roommate had a strong grip and a friendly smile that made Lance want to smile back, which he did.

 

“I’m Hunk. It’s nice to meet you, Lance!” he said cheerfully with the big smile on his lips widening just a bit with every word and the brunet knew they would get along just fine.

 

“So, Hunk, do you know where I can get a change of clothes?” Lance asked, immediately regretting it as Hunk’s eyes widened and he looked at Lance like he had just grown an extra head. And now that he thought about it, that _could_ be a possible side effect of getting magic abilities. He wouldn’t consider it to be impossible now that he knew magic existed.

 

Hunk looked back at the two rooms, that Lance had concluded to be doors that lead to their own bedrooms, before he cleared his throat. “Just go in there. There’s a closet in there and you just have to imagine some outfit you want and it’ll give you exactly the clothes you wished for. Was your family too poor for those kinds of closets?”

 

Lance’s jaw dropped at that, ignoring Hunk’s last question since he didn’t even really register it.

 

_A closet that just gives you whatever clothes you need?? What kind of economy is this?_ , Lance thought while feeling his body shaking with excitement, _Who cares?? All my fashion dreams are coming true!_

 

He let out an illegible shriek before tumbling to his bedroom door. Hunk watched him with curiosity and a hint of amusement as he struggled a little with the door handle.

 

Once the door finally opened, Lance leapt inside his new room, the door banging closed after him. But before he could concentrate on checking out the magic closet, he was struck with awe.

 

The room looked very much like his room at home in shape and furniture placement but was also filled with new things he had dreamed of having in his room but never had the chance to own. For example the blue, fish shaped lamps tangling from the ceiling just above the bed, glowing their soft blue hue all over the room.

 

The bed looked soft and inviting with it’s ocean themed bed sheets in the middle of the room while the carpet literally looked like sand, kind of even felt like soft beach sand under his feet. He could almost smell the ocean in the air as he walked around the carpet to take a closer look on his bed before he moved onto other things.

 

Lance’s gaze roamed through the room, drinking in everything that he saw. He almost bumped into a small wooden nightstand that had a small shark figurine on it while he was too busy admiring every small detail around.

 

That was when the brunet noticed that there was a wall made out of different soft blue closets on the left side of his bed. He didn’t investigate it too much as his eyes trailed onto the wall his bed was against. It was like looking into an aquarium that has a small coral reef inside it with all different kinds of corals and colourful fish. He followed the movements of the fish for a while before homing onto the wall that had a window on it.

 

He moved over to look out of the window and saw a building resembling to a mix between a huge school and a modern mansion. It was made of some kind of silver-ish metal with the same golden stripes that Lance had seen around. He couldn’t help but feel excited about being able to be studying inside a building like that.

 

He ripped his eyes away from the window to see what the last wall was like but he stopped as he noticed yet another closet. It looked different from the others on the wall, having an old design while the others looked fairly modern, maybe even futuristic.

 

Lance curiously approached the lone closet and opened it to reveal it was very dark and empty on the inside just like on the outside. He tilted his head, confused at its purpose before he recalled what Hunk had told him.

 

He decided to try it and started imagining up an outfit as he closed the closet doors. He slowly counted to five before opening the closet again and _holy cow_ it wasn’t empty anymore. There were clothing on the floor of the closet, neatly folded separate from each other.

 

It didn’t take Lance long to take these new clothes for closer inspection to make sure they were what he had _ordered_.

 

He started with a blue t-shirt that was slim and the colour faded as it went down before moving onto the dark blue skinny jeans that had only one pocket in the back and two in the front with a grey-ish belt set through the loops on the waist area. He then picked up the grey sneakers, one size too big on purpose, that had three aqua blue striped on outer sides and dark grey, almost black, laces. Inside them were normal, white socks with blue shark prints on them.

 

He smiled in satisfaction, checking the door to be closed before starting to change into his new outfit. He was starting to feel giddy as every fabric felt softer under his touch than they usually should have.

 

**\-----**

 

When Lance emerged from his room, he was wearing his brand new clothes with pride. He absentmindedly played with the hem of his shirt as he made his way to the kitchen.

 

Once he stepped in front of the opening that revealed most of the small kitchen, his nose picked up a sweet scent coming from the direction he was heading to. The scent was quite sweet and strong enough to be tasted in the air. It brought the taste of honey to Lance’s tongue but there was something different to it, changing it to something totally unknown and new.

 

With the fuzzy childlike curiosity that had spiked inside him, Lance stepped into the kitchen, closer to the sweet scent that was now overtaking all of his senses, where his roommate was making _something_ . Well, _making_ was a complicated word to use for what Hunk was doing.

 

The taller boy wasn’t even looking at the hot stove, at least what Lance assumed to be the stove ( _it looked nothing like any stove he’d seen before_ ), his attention more on a small book in his hands as he was leaning back on a chair. His dark brown eyes were on the pages, moving rapidly from word to word but no page was flipped.  

 

Lance let his eyes wander around the kitchen and upon noticing something very out of normal, _for him_ , he stopped and whipped his head around to look at Hunk. The other boy was still happily reading his book so Lance decided that it was a perfect time to clear his throat.

 

_There’s a bowl floating in mid air, for fuck’s sake!_

 

The noise caught Hunk’s attention quite easily and he ripped his gaze from the pages to look up at where Lance was standing, leaning against the wall right next to the opening. He started just slightly but relaxed when his eyes met Lance’s.

 

The mixing bowl started to float downwards, slowly making its way onto the black table, _at least the table looked fairly normal_. It made an almost inaudible clanking noise as it landed.

 

Lance glared at the bowl in accusatory like it was trying to pretend to be normal around him now that it had stopped floating.

 

“So,” Lance started, sifting his gaze from the bowl to Hunk, softening his eyes from a glare to a friendly look before it got to Hunk, “what are you makin’?”

 

Lance was honestly curious, even taking a quick peek into the bowl himself to get a quicker answer but it just left him even more confused. Whatever was inside it ( _dough, maybe?_ ) was coloured light purple, and he had a feeling it wasn’t because of some food colouring. Even if he didn’t know what was inside the bowl, he was now sure that the source of the sweet scent in the kitchen was what Hunk was making.

 

Hunk looked sheepish for a moment before he moved to grab the mixing bowl from the table and set it on his lap. “It’s- it’s my own recipe. I like to experiment on food and I wanted to see if I could alter the pancake recipe to make a whole new kind of treat.”

 

Lance looked at Hunk in amazement, maybe awe even, his eyes wide with excitement and mouth hanging open as his curiosity grew even more. _Did Hunk do this often?_

 

“Really?” Lance asked like an excited child and got a quick nod from Hunk who was obviously stirring with a similar excitement about the matter, “That’s amazing!”

 

Lance eyes were locked on Hunk, sparkling with admiration. The latter rubbed the back of his head and flushed a bit at the compliment, shooting the brunet a slightly crooked smile in graditure, “Thanks, man!”

 

Lance muttered something about it ‘ _being no problem’_ before he perked up, recalling what exactly Hunk was making.

 

“What I’m gonna say next will sound crazy,” Lance stated, clearing his throat to seem more serious and Hunk responded to this by straightening up to show he was listening, “I couldn't help but hear you mention pancakes. You have pancakes here?”

 

Lance felt a feel of deja vu whe  Hunk looked a little puzzled at his question, his left eyebrow quirking up as he squinted at Lance in disbelief.

 

_Maybe that wasn’t the best question to ask when you’re pretending to not be from another world. Heh._

 

“Yeah. We have pancakes. Have you never tasted pancakes?” Hunk asked, starting to look slightly worried as if someone never having tasted pancakes was unacceptable. And really, Lance had to agree with him.

 

N _o one should ever live without tasting the heavenly goodness that was pancakes_.

 

“Oh, I have. Multiple times. Mamà always made them for me and my siblings for breakfast on special occasions,” Lance answered, smiling fondly at the thought of his family.

 

The memories of throwing pancakes at each other, trying to catch them with their mouths, until their mother would scold them flooded his mind and it didn’t take long for the fondness to be taken over with sadness.

 

_You’ll see them again_ , he tried to comfort himself, quickly covering the upcoming tears that made his eyes shine with a wide smile.

 

Hunk furrowed his brows, in worry or suspicion, Lance didn’t know, but he didn’t say anything which the brunet was thankful of. Then the other boy smiled widely, giving off warm, friendly aura that swished some of Lance’s heavy sadness out of him.

 

“Okay. Do you want to try my new recipe?” Hunk asked before turning to the stove for the first time since Lance had stepped into the kitchen, “I think the dough is almost done, so I can start frying them soon.”

 

Lance nodded enthusiastically, pushing away the rest of the sad thoughts for later dwelling.

 

He sat down on one of the chairs around the round, small-ish table, realizing that there were three chairs around it. One of them, the one Hunk had been sitting on before going over to the stove, was different from the other two. His eyes locked onto the different one in silent curiosity.

 

Hunk must have noticed Lance staring at the chair, with his brows furrowed and lips in a thoughtful pout, because he suddenly spoke up again, kind of startling Lance out of his puzzlement.

 

“I brought my own chair from home. Kinda to remind myself of it since I can only go there during vacations,” Hunk explained, nodding towards the chair Lance had been staring at before Hunk had got his attention by speaking.

 

Lance nodded in understanding and looked back at the chair with a new way, a more fond way. He kind of hoped he could have brought something to remind him of home, his pyjamas didn’t really do the job for him. _Well, at least they are something._

 

Hunk observed Lance for a while before he turned to the stove(?) to start making his pancake experiments into reality.

 

The room was then filled with sizzling of what was possibly a frying pan and the sweet scent. It was calming, in a way, when there was no need to have a conversation but it still wasn’t totally silent.

 

Lance watched the pan, watched while the pancakes fried and the purple colour of them slowly turned darker. He had never seen a purple pancake before but he couldn’t really even put it to his _top 10 weirdest things I’ve witnessed_ -list after all the things that had happened this weekend. _Today, to be precise._

 

“Hey, I was wondering, what kind of spellcaster are you?” Hunk suddenly asked, pulling Lance back to present after he had got caught up in reliving the memories from the past day or so.

 

“Uh, what kinds are there?” Lance awkwardly asked before he could even consider what kind of reaction that question would get from Hunk.

 

The other boy whipped around, looking more confused than ever. But even in his confusion he quickly flipped the pancake, most likely his fourth, without even looking back _at the pan_.

 

“What kind of question is that? Have you lived under a rock until now?” Hunk questioned, quickly putting the finished pancake on a seperate plate before starting to make a new one. For this he had to turn around but he was quick to turn back to Lance to give him a confused eyebrow raise.

 

Lance really didn’t know how to answer that so he just decided to go the truthful route. “Um, a rock that holds Areth under it, if that even is a thing.”

 

The pan, that had been raised from the stove in for a bit, dropped from Hunk’s hand as he processed Lance’s words. And after the bang it caused and a weak chuckle from Lance, the silence in the room was so intense that one could probably hear a pin drop.

 

For a moment the two boys just stared at each other, Hunk with his wide, shocked brown eyes and Lance with his nervous ocean blue eyes. Neither of them barely even breathed, not that Lance knew for sure if spellcasters even needed to breathe in the first place.

 

_Maybe they are like vampires, how could I know_.

 

“You are from _Areth_?! As in the world on the other side of the Gate?!” Hunk spoke so fast that Lance had a hard time deciphering all of his words as they hit him in the face like a particularly strong wave.

 

“Yeaaah,” Lance tried to seem nonchalant as he answered slowly, dragging the word on his tongue.

 

Hunk’s eyes scanned his face for any sign of dishonesty and when he found none, he gasped very loudly. _Oh boy._

 

“Holy shit, dude. How?” Hunk asked, as he finally seemed to find his ability to move his mouth again.

 

Lance averted his gaze, rubbing the side of his neck. “It’s kinda a long story but a shortened version of it would be that I accidentally stumbled upon this weird magic gemstone thing and then I broke it, _still_ _accidentally_ , and kinda absorbed its powers?”

 

Hunk stared at Lance, his mouth so agape that Lance feared his jaw would fall off any moment. Then the boy’s eyes sparkled with curiosity with the side of slight fear. “When was this?”

 

Lance decided to ignore the hint of fear in Hunk’s eyes for now in order to give his answer. He fumbled with his fingers as he tilted his head to the side, drawing in a breath that caused a soft hissing noise to come out of his mouth.

 

“Yesterday...”

 

“Holy shit.”

 

Lance didn’t quite understand why the date of him gaining his powers was necessary information but decided to just roll with it. He observed Hunk as the other boy tried to wreck his brain through all of this new knowledge. Then he seemed to come to a pause, looking at Lance like he tried to see through him into his soul, though, the fear was still evident in his eyes.

 

“So, you’re like, a human?” Hunk asked, pursing his lips together in thought.

 

Lance nodded. There was no need for him to lie about it since it was pretty much an obvious fact with all the other information that had been given. Hunk encouraged this deduction by nodding his head in understanding, his face screaming that he had known the answer but still needed to make sure by hearing it from Lance himself.

 

“Dude, that’s actually really cool. But kinda terrifying, considering all the things I’ve heard of humans,” Hunk stated, shivering at his thoughts, probably memories of aforementioned scary stories of humans.

 

_Huh, maybe these magic people had scary stories about humans just like humans had scary stories of creatures with supernatural abilities._

 

Lance snorted, which soon evolved into a full on laughter. He had to lean forward and cover his mouth with his hands to muffle the laughter that just wouldn’t stop. Maybe it was because he had had a very stressing day and had felt enough sadness for now, but he laughed like there was no tomorrow.

 

Hunk looked puzzled as to why his new roommate was laughing so hard but soon joined in anyway. His laughter was full but soft and it made Lance grin widely.

 

“Bro, no need to worry, I’m harmless. Or so I think, I’m apparently not that good at controlling magic, I haven’t tried yet though,” Lance informed after he finally managed to calm down from laughing. Hunk, too, seemed to start calming down from his burst of laughter.

 

“Yeah. I don’t think you are dangerous. And, you’ll only really know by trying to use them,” Hunk said, with an easy but wide smile on his face which turned into a mock wary expression as he added, “But not close to my pancakes!”

 

Lance laughed again and shook his head. “Don’t worry, your pancakes are safe. I’m not even sure _how_ to use them.”

 

Hunk grinned widely at him, returning to his pancakes, even sliding one on a plate which he then offered to Lance for tasting. The brunet eagerly took it.

 

It tasted like honey pancakes with something more fruity mixed in and he had to admit it, it was one of the best things he had ever tasted.

 

**\-----**

 

Keith glared at the school doors like they had just personally insulted him. He knew it wasn’t actually the doors’ fault that his alarm hadn’t worked which almost caused him to be late, but he still couldn’t help but glare at them as his very core was filled up with annoyance towards the world.

 

Shiro had left to work earlier that day, so, Keith had had to put his own alarm system to use just for it to fail him. And to add pain to injury, he had only got three hours of sleep last night. His lack of sleep lead to him literally glaring at anyone who even dared to try talking to him. Even Pidge, his best, _and probably only_ , friend.

 

“Wow, you look like a troll that got a makeover which went horribly wrong.” Pidge blurted out the moment they came face to face with Keith and his death glare, letting out a low whistle for good measure.

 

Keith just grunted annoyedly in reply, putting a floating spell on his books so he could have his hands free to at least _try_ and fix his hair a bit since it must have looked more like a bird nest than usual. It even felt like one when his fingers came to contact with it. After a bit of struggle, his hair looked presentable enough _or_ at least as presentable as usual.

 

Pidge snickered at him, though, so he just assumed it didn’t look any better, maybe even worse.

 

“Still anything from Matt?” Keith offhandedly asked, wanting to change the subject from the catastrophe that was his looks and hair to something else. By now he knew that Pidge’s missing brother wasn’t that difficult of a subject for them to talk about because they were certain he was alive and that they would find them.

 

“Nothing,” Pidge muttered, glaring at some guy who bumped against their shoulder by accident.

 

The guy gave an apologetic look before quickly running off. Keith could relate, _Pidge’s glare was really something no one wanted to be in the receiving end of._

 

Keith grunted in acknowledgement, not really knowing what else to say despite bringing up the topic. Not that Pidge probably expected him to say anything.

 

After Pidge’s dad had gone missing, Matt had left to search for him. This had been two weeks ago and there was still only one letter from Matt, the one he sent on the second day after leaving, and it didn’t really have any clues to his coordinates.

 

Suddenly, a loud noise of something falling against the floor tiles rang through the air and it got both of their attentions to one of the staircases that lead to the second floor.

 

Keith quickly lost interest in whatever was happening when his eyes fell to a guy glaring up at the upper stair with scattered books at his feet. He was about to continue walking towards his destination but of course Pidge wasn’t on the same page.

 

They were walking towards the commotion to get a better view of what was happening and Keith just had to follow since he didn’t feel like going into the half empty classroom on his own. Plus getting through the sea of students the commotion had caused didn’t seem like a fun thing to do, especially after only three hours of sleep.

 

“What the fuck, you dick?!” a roaring voice, belonging to the guy who had gotten books to the head, who Keith distinguishably remembered being called Rolo, yelled.

 

“Oh, sorry, the floating spell didn’t happen to work!” came an easy reply, from above Rolo on the other level of the staircase where the aforementioned boy was directing his glare at.

 

Keith’s eyes followed Rolo’s glare to see who was the other person in this conflict. When his eyes came to a stop at the person, he almost choked on his own spit.

 

There, standing and leaning over the railing, was the blue-eyed, tanned boy from yesterday. Also known as the boy who ruined Keith’s only chance at a normal life.

 

The boy had an easy grin on his face as he looked down at Rolo as the boy below cursed very audibly, stomping his foot down in frustration.

 

“You little fuck! When you get down here to get your books, I’m gonna strangle you!” Rolo roared with pure rage as he aggressively pointed at the books at his feet, “Or do I have to come up there to beat you up?”

 

Keith wasn’t paying Rolo much attention, despite hearing his yelling, _he was so loud_. He was staring at the tanned boy, who slightly flinched which was followed by something like uncertainty flashing by in his eyes.

 

But still, despite him clearly being somewhat afraid of Rolo, he grinned easily, smacking his lips loudly enough for Keith -- anyone -- to hear and for Rolo to get even more pissed off. Honestly, Rolo seemed to be ready to just walk up to throw the source of his annoyance down the stairs but he never got to that when the blue-eyed boy opened his mouth again.

 

“We’ll see if you can even manage to catch me!” the tanned boy yelled challengingly, all the fear from earlier gone. But his cocky grin didn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

“He’s gonna get fucked,” Pidge whispered, pulling Keith’s attention to themselves. They, too, were quietly observing this all unfold.

 

Keith whipped his head back to the tanned boy and Rolo, locking more onto the tanned boy but he would never admit such a thing.

 

Without any hesitation in his body language, the blue-eyed boy took a steady hold of the railing and flung himself over it. Everyone looked curiously as the boy didn’t use any floating spell to soften his fall.

 

He dropped right in front of Rolo and the latter quickly reached his hands to grab him but the tanned boy avoided it _seemingly_ easily, grabbing his books as he did. It was like watching him dance with the shift movement he used.

 

But after the boy had his books in secure hold, Rolo grabbed him from behind, taking him into a choke hold, steadying his head next to his ear where he started to move his lips.

 

Keith had studied enough spells to know that the one Rolo was trying to use was a curse spell and suddenly his body was moving on its own accord.

 

Before Keith could really stop himself, he had ripped Rolo off of the blue eyed boy and was throwing him against the ground.

 

The boy below him shrieked and tried to struggle his way out of Keith hold but the dark haired boy was holding his arm in a tight hold and pushing his knee against his chest to keep him there.

 

“Don’t use those spells on others just because you happened to get books to the head,” Keith hissed, his eyes burning with flames that could make almost anyone back out from fighting him further.

 

Rolo was part of those people, covering under Keith with pure fear in his eyes as he nodded furiously multiple times.

 

Keith slowly released him, keeping his tight glare onto the boy just incase he changed his mind in the last moment.

 

The moment Rolo was freed, he was running up the stairs in a huff but the fear was still lingering in his eyes and Keith knew he wouldn’t try anything.

 

“Woah, thanks, dude. Though I could have-” the tanned boy began to speak but was cut off by Keith abruptly turning around, facing him as he slammed his hand against the railing. This caused the boy to jump with a yelp of surprise.

 

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?! You could have gotten seriously cursed! And for a reason as stupid as dropping some books on some guy’s head? You’re an idiot!” Keith yelled, halfly because he was still aggravated from what had happened with Rolo and because this boy in front of him had ruined everything, “Stop being a total moron if you are gonna stick around!”

 

The tanned boy looked shocked, his mouth half open as if he had been trying to explain something, _himself, perhaps_ . Maybe _mortified_ was a better word to describe his expression, but Keith didn’t care.

 

He was flaming with pure anger and it wasn’t about to calm down, _he_ wants about to calm down, yesterday still clear in his mind. He felt his flame of anger rise up to his throat, slowly filling his insides with the burning feeling of rage he was very familiar with.

 

Keith knew he should’ve just walked away, cooled off somewhere else but part of him, the impulsive one, was in control and he stayed rooted where he was. There was no way he was going to stop his next words from getting out. He could already feel them on his tongue, burning with the want, _the need_ , to get out.

 

“Get out of my sight. You don’t belong here.”

 

Keith regretted it immediately as he said it, coming down from his impulsive high. He wanted to apologize but no words came out and he ended up cursing himself mentally.

 

The only thing the dark haired boy could do was stare at those wide, ocean blue-eyes that had sifted from fear to hurt. Just with few words, Keith felt like he had straight up ripped Lance open and tore his heart out and apart. He cursed himself more.

 

“I see,” Lance whispered, his tone as icy as his eyes, hiding the hurt from even himself.

 

The ever so vibrant ocean in his eyes froze into cold, hard ice in the matter of seconds, his icy gaze now staring through Keith into his soul, leaving him yearning for warmth. He couldn’t say anything, the flames of anger were gone and there were only now slightly frozen over ashes left inside of him, leaving him with a bad taste in his mouth.

 

Lance shoved past him harshly and walked off into the second floor.

 

Keith suddenly felt so cold that he felt frozen which was weird because he never felt cold. He felt hollow, like his whole, well, _him_ had been ripped out of him, taken away from the shell that was left of him. Like his soul had left with Lance.

 

No one else nearby had heard what he has said to Lance after his lecturing. _No one_ knew why he was now looking so small and so weak, why he was feeling so _guilty_.

 

But, like the stubborn person he was, he swallowed down the feeling of dread and guilt, doing his best to melt down the ice that he had been left with.

 

Keith stomped over to Pidge who eyed him curiously. He didn’t look back at them, just walking past them without a word or acknowledgement and, still, he heard Pidge’s familiar footsteps behind him, never leaving.

 

**\-----**

 

The day went on as usual. Keith avoided human contact with all his might, not that anyone ever actually dared to bother him except that one time. His resting face was a scowl and he tended to glare at anyone who made eye contact with him even without really thinking it. So, he wasn’t the easiest person to approach.

 

But what wasn’t like usual was Pidge. _Yes_ , Pidge had always been quite nosey about certain things and once they set their goal onto getting information on something, even if it that _something_ was very well hidden _or personal_ , they would find the information they wanted without a fail. But this was _different_ . This time the thing they wanted to know was _who exactly was the boy and why had Keith known him_.

 

Usually Keith could ignore Pidge long enough for them to elect in getting the information from someone else, usually that someone being Shiro, but this situation was something Keith certainly didn’t want Pidge to stick their nose into.

 

Plus, they kept giving him weird glances, the kinds that they had given Matt whenever he had been around Shiro, and Keith knew _way_ too well what those glances meant. And he did _not_ want Pidge thinking it was something like that when it most definitely _wasn’t_. But he held his ground, refusing to slip any even minor information. At least, the best he could.

 

After the fourth period, Keith finally cracked under those eyes.

 

He whipped around to full-on glare at Pidge who just replied with a wicked grin, knowing that they now had Keith exactly where they wanted him.

 

Keith concluded that he didn’t like this smug look on his best friend, especially when it was targeted at him, and that he might have made a mistake.

 

“So,” Pidge started, their tone as sweet as honey, making Keith more irritated every second, “how do you know him?”

 

Without really even being able to control it, Keith was sent into a spiral of the events from few hours ago. He could hear his cold words that had burned alongside his anger. He could see the look in those blue eyes as they went from gentle ocean waves to ice. He felt shivers run down his spine as the memory of the two cold words the other boy had said while the ocean in his eyes was unmoving.

 

Keith knew he’d fucked up. He knew it but even then, he could feel the anger make a bright appearance inside his gut whenever he thought about the boy who had taken the Tear away from him. He was mad at the boy but at himself, too. And just like that, quilt, regret and anger mixed together, making Keith’s insides twist while the heat of the flames remained, burning his throat and making him unable to answer.

 

His gaze had wandered to the floor, getting stuck on his feet that ended up being in the receiving end of his unconcious glare. The one thing that snapped his attention away from the ground, was Pidge’s sudden hum, the one they always made when they had spotted something interesting. It very rarely meant any good for the people around them.

 

Keith’s felt shivers run down his spine when he noticed that Pidge was looking at the direction of the classroom where their next lesson would be. This exact classroom happened to be one of Pidge’s least favourites since it was very nature themed with plants everywhere. They always felt like they had stepped outside, which they disliked and rarely did, when stepping into that classroom.

 

Pidge’s hazel eyes flashed with something mischievous and suddenly Keith was very concerned for himself, he felt his gut twisting again but for a whole other reason this time. He stepped forward, trying to catch Pidge’s attention for questioning, when suddenly they whipped their head to face Keith.

 

“I think my class is starting, so, I’ll see you around after class,” Pidge hurriedly said, glancing at the entrance of the classroom.

 

Before Keith could even react or get to add anything, Pidge was bolting towards the third door to the left from their standpoint. The dark haired boy was left to stand alone, to try and rack his brain through for any reasons why his friend was suddenly so eager for the class involving nature in both literal and theoretical sense.

 

Keith didn’t have that long to just keep staring and working his brain, though, since his class was starting in seven minutes and his classroom was on the third floor. He could easily run up a few pair of stairs but he decided not rely on that alternative since the teacher of his next class, creation and change, was always few minutes early and liked to count anyone who came in after himself as late.

 

The dark haired boy turned around on his heel, trying to push away his need to know what Pidge was planning to concentrate on his next class where he would probably have to turn in his homework. This meant that he would have to use his magical abilities in front of a whole class worth of students just to prove he actually knew how to make a fish shaped scoop of mud into a mud fish able to move around on its own free will.

 

_Great._

 

**\-----**

 

Lance was heading towards the classroom with Hunk walking by his side. His friend was going through some kind of manual of his that the latino knew nothing about but he wasn’t about to ask because it seemed personal. He just hummed, looking around at all the different kinds of people.

 

To the most part the majority of people he had seen had very many human features but after confirming it from Hunk he knew that no one here was a human, well, except Lance himself.

 

As they were walking, they arrived in front of a door which seemed to be where their next class would be held in, if Hunk’s sharp turn towards it was anything to go by. Hunk disappeared through the open door of the classroom and Lance started lowkey psyching himself up for the fourth time that day.

 

_Preparations can never go wrong._

 

The classroom, according to Hunk, was very nature-themed but the brunet couldn’t bring himself to actually expect anything since he had very little knowledge as to what people in Oreas thought was nature-themed. But he did have a hunch it would be something bizarre, making his judgement from the other classrooms he had been in today.

 

One of the said classroom had been a literal anti-gravity room and while it had fascinated Lance to no end, he had squeaked very embarrassingly, he wouldn’t admit it if someone asked, when he was suddenly launched into the air because of no gravity. Needless to say, he now knew to be careful when stepping into rooms around the school.

 

Lance took a careful step through the door, already imagining giant vines grabbing onto him and dragging him to his seat. Nothing of sorts happened but he almost ended up swallowing his own tongue when he stepped into the classroom, his breath hitching just a bit in his throat at the sight.

 

The walls were covered in some kind of light grey vines that had silver shaded leaves attached to them. They were so thickly arranged that you could barely make out that the actual wall was made of some kind of dark, almost black stone.

 

His eyes trailed the wall, following the curves of the vines, admiring the silvery leaves.

 

The floor finally stole his attention when he took a step and felt something similar to rough rock even through the sneakers he was wearing. The floor was designed to look like the rocky floor of a mountain. It reminded Lance of all the times he and his family had gone hiking to the mountains.

 

He followed the many lines that the cracks made on the floor like he had done on the mountain everytime he had climbed it, and he was filled with nostalgia. The lines weren’t like the ones on that exact mountain he had been to more times than he could remember but they still reminded him of it, his eyes starting to sting with upcoming tears.

 

Lance managed to hold the tears in, with sheer will of not wanting anyone to see him shed tears. But for a while he could almost hear his younger siblings’ excited yells about how cool looking the cracks were, some of his nieces and nephews asking how they had come to be.

 

His eyes shot back up and onto the walls where he noticed the windows. They were hard to notice since almost every one of them had vines covering at least a half of them.

 

It took him a while of inspecting but he discovered that the windows weren’t windows at all but mere holes that had been shaped to look like windows, there was no glass or anything glass-like involved. This let the soft breeze and the unknown scents of Oreas’ outside world fill Lance’s senses. It felt so unfamiliar but at the same time he felt more at home than during all his time on this side of the Gate since the strongest scent of them all was almost like the scent of the ocean.

 

_Wonder if there’s an ocean nearby._

 

A gentle tap on his shoulder startled him back from his memories and thoughts to the present. He jumped a bit, earning a quiet, hurried apology said by a voice he had learnt to recognize by now.

 

He whipped around and was met with Hunk’s warm smile and slightly concerned and apologetic eyes.

 

_This boy is a literal sunshine, I swear._

 

Lance waved his hand lazily in the air, mumbling something about getting too lost in thought, trying to reassure his friend. He even added a quick, wide smile at the end just in case.

 

Hunk gave Lance’s shoulder a soft squeeze before he nodded towards the empty seats in the back. He mouthed something about going to sit down and Lance nodded in agreement. He didn’t want to be still standing when the teacher showed up. Being embarrassed in front of a teacher _once_ had been enough for Lance, _thank you very much_.

 

The two of them made their way to the back seats, on a group table of three, and started to gather their stuff from their bags.

 

Lance took out the text book with a title _‘Plans of Plants’_ and snorted.

 

All the books Allura has delivered him, probably during the night since he had found them the next morning when he woke up, were very thick and heavy. And for some reason all they had some weird kind of title that Lance did not expect from a school like this one.

 

_Not that I know much about this school, anyway._

 

He had gotten a note with the books, telling him about them and for what class each one was. This note had been inside a noticeably big envelope that had also had his schedule inside. He was very relieved after comparing his and Hunk’s schedules and noting that they had a lot of the same classes. And _thankfully_ today had been a day where all their classes lined up because Lance probably wouldn’t have survived the first day all on his own.

 

The envelope had also held a reassuring explanation that this school taught mostly in English, because this school was closest to the Gate and mostly students here started to travel between the worlds for their jobs, so the writing in the books would be easy to understand, but occasionally some classes would be thought in a language known as _Akrestian_ but for that Allura had something for him. Inside the envelope were glasses that were meant to translate everything written in Akrestian to English. The languages sounded similar but there were few words that didn’t line up and the glasses would helpfully translate speech, too.

 

Lance returned to present, scanning the cover art of the book in front of him which, in his opinion, was amazing. A small planet looking thing was in the middle of the cover, all kinds of different plants growing from it, Lance could name a few of them but not many. The planet was held by a pair of hands that were covered in small green plants as if they were growing from the hands themselves. He couldn’t stop studying the cover, trying to find more plants that looked somewhat recognizable.

 

Hunk on the other hand, was going through the book, just absentmindedly flipping through the white pages with a slight yellow shade to them, not actually trying to read any information. While Lance observed his new friend, his thoughts returned to the events from before. To Keith, to be exact.

 

The dark haired boy’s raging eyes were still in his mind. Now that Lance thought about it, despite the boy’s eyes literally flaming with furry, he had noticed those dark eyes taking a little grey shade to them. The memory of that slight grey reminded Lance of a forest fire when after the fire had burned, there was grey smoke to follow. He shook off the thoughts as Keith’s words played in his mind for what felt like the hundredth time today.

 

_‘Get out of my sight. You don’t belong here.’_

 

Lance groaned, quite loudly, burying his head into his arms, wanting to hide from the world. He had got quite good at hiding his negative emotions during all the years with his family. Not wanting to worry them with his problems he had made holding back the tears a habit. But nothing took away the deep bang of pain in his chest that kept repeating every time he recalled those words. They had been said with venom dripping through, with full on hatred that made Lance’s chest squeeze painfully.

 

Despite all the reassuring and comforting Hunk had done, _and he had done a it amazingly_ , after Lance had complained about Keith, the brunet still felt hollow. Nothing in him could deny that what Keith had said was correct. Lance didn’t belong.

 

_Like the fuck I don’t know that already, Mullet._

 

Suddenly, like out of nowhere, Lance was swished out of his self pity by the sound of someone clearing their throat. He peeked up from where he was hiding his face against his arm and was met with hazel eyes that shone with raw curiosity and something else the brunet couldn’t pinpoint.

 

“Is this seat taken?” the person asked, moving their hand to gesture at the free chair that was just sitting there, without being used for the purpose it was made for.

 

Lance quickly shook his head, lifting it up a bit more to make it clear what he was doing with it. He then proceeded to scoot over, the chair protested by squeaking a little as it went against the floor for too long, to make more room for this new person. This caused him to be a bit closer to Hunk, but he noted that his friend too had scooted over a bit, and it wasn’t like he actually minded being closer to him.

 

The person sat down, putting their bag on the table to take out their book. This gave Lance enough time to study this new person without getting interrupted or caught for that matter. They had a short light brown hair that was kind of sticking everywhere without any control. The long bangs were moved aside a bit by the round glasses but some still managed to settle on to them.

 

Lance was in the middle of trying to identify if the spot on their cheek was a freckle or a smudge when suddenly those hazel eyes were piercing through his skull. He hadn’t even noticed when the stranger had whipped their head around but they apparently had at some point.

 

He almost fell off of his chair because of the surprise.

 

“I’m Pidge Holt, if you were wondering. And with the amount of staring, I would have to guess you were either wondering or you ‘ _got lost in thought_ ’ as people usually say for an excuse,” the stranger, Pidge, said and let a wicked grin spread across their face with ease. They knew they were right without Lance even having to confirm it.

 

“Nice to meet you Pidge, I’m Hunk,” the ever so friendly Hunk spoke up, introducing himself while Lance tried to regain himself from _a problematic case_ now known as Pidge Holt.

 

Hunk and Pidge shook hands across the table, right under Lance’s nose, when the brunet finally snapped to action. His blue eyes locked with hazel ones in a challenging manner that got easily, _way too easily_ , ignored. But before Lance could get into dwelling over defeat, his eyes shot to look around the classroom.

 

Most students had already made their way into the seats but still many free seats remained at front and suddenly Lance had an idea, probably an awful idea but that had never stopped him before. A playful grin made its home to his lips as he turned to face Pidge again, who was now raising an eyebrow at him while side glancing at his direction.

 

“So, why did you come back here? For a short person like you it would be easier to just take a seat that’s in the front,” Lance pointed out with a cocky smile. The smile was soon shattered into pieces, though, when a very firm kick was received by Lance’s shin.

 

He let out a strangled yelp as he moved quickly to lift his leg to check it if it had any injury, rolling up his grey baggy jeans to check. He didn’t particularly see any damage but from the pain alone, he could guess that the kick would cause a nasty bruise to appear on his leg later.

 

Pidge snorted as Lance let his leg fall back down under the desk, this only earning them a glare from the said boy. He was starting to let his guard back down but like sensing it, Pidge pulled him by the tie he was wearing (went well with his button up he was wearing which’s sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows _, of course_ ), jerking him down to their eye-level.

 

“Call me short again and I’ll be sure to make it that we’ll always be on the same eye-level,” Pidge hummed but their tone told that they were capable of decking anyone if the situation called for it.

 

Lance just quickly nodded which lead for him getting released from the death grip Pidge’s hand had on his tie.

 

Hunk elbowed Lance, catching both his and Pidge’s attention. The taller boy nodded at the general direction of the front of the class where a new kind of persona, whom Lance assumed to be the teacher, was standing, looking quite peppy.

 

The teacher was a bit funny looking, at least in Lance’s opinion. He had orange hair that had been slicked back behind his ears and he was sporting a thick moustache of the exact same shade of orange his hair was.

 

The teacher was scanning through the class while fiddling with said moustache like a man on a mission. It didn’t seem to be indicated to be intimidating, though, so Lance relaxed in his seat.

 

And, after making sure everyone was paying attention to the front and not somewhere else, the teacher cleared his throat, beginning to speak.

 

“Hello fellas! My name is Coran Alteya, you can refer to me as just Coran with that name, and I will be teaching you about the wonders of all the different things nature can offer! And of course we’re talking about both Oreas’ and Areth’s nature!” the teacher spoke in a cheery voice, moving freely as he did. And that’s how the class started.

 

**\-----**

 

By the end of the class, Lance was both tired but intrigued. Coran, despite sometimes getting off track with his own stories, had an interesting way of teaching, and speaking, that kept you paying attention until the end.

 

Though, Lance did have a suspicion that most of his intrigue towards the class was mostly because of the fact that it had to do with magic. He had been pretty interested in every subject so far, not that he didn’t have any interest in the subjects taught at Arethian schools. He loved maths and biology but there was just this certain kind of feeling he got when learning about magic related things.

 

As Coran dismissed the class, letting the students go on their own ways to either another class or _home_ , Pidge approached Lance and Hunk again. They had eyed the two of them curiously for a while now, more oftenly their eyes were on Lance, though.

 

“Do you guys have a class after this?” Pidge asked, obviously trying to remain as casual as possible, their eyes travelling from Lance to Hunk and back.

 

Hunk and Lance changed looks before shaking their heads and Hunk letting out a quiet humm of denial. This answer was obviously what Pidge had wanted to hear as their face brightened up.

 

“Good. Because I really need someone to help me get into the dormitory building and I accidentally left my own keys into my friend’s bag.”

 

“How do you accidentally leave your keys into someone else’s bag?” Lance asked suspiciously, raising a brow to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t easily buying it.

 

Hunk on the other hand had decided not to question it, looking at Pidge with empathy.

 

Pidge glanced sideways, their grip tightening around their bag’s handle as they bit into their lip in thought. “Hard to explain. I slipped it in there accidentally with my notebook during one break because I usually make him carry my stuff without him noticing.”

 

Lance scoffed in amusement and Hunk grinned widely which threw Pidge off a bit. They obviously weren’t expecting this kind of reaction.

 

“Okay, we’ll help you out but you obviously don’t even have the key to your dorm room, right?” Lance questioned, getting a nod and a confused squint from Pidge. “That means you’ll be coming to hang out in our dorm room. Hunk was going to try some cookie recipe experiment.”

 

Lance downright declared it, not letting Pidge say no for an answer as he was already pulling them towards the exit of the classroom while Hunk walked next to him, humming happily since he had gained another person to help with his experiment.

 

**\-----**

 

Lance was splayed on the couch while watching Hunk cook in their small kitchen. Occasionally the taller boy managed to make a mistake and he let out a loud yelp that got a laugh out of Lance and a lowkey snort out of Pidge.

 

Pidge was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with an open book on their lap. Their eyes were furiously scanning the pages with a speed that made Lance doubt that they were actually even reading.

 

After a bit of watching Hunk cook and Pidge _read_ , a quiet sound of thunder rang through the room, throwing Lance off so badly that he fell off the couch onto the floor. Even Hunk looked like he had a mild heart attack.

 

Pidge blinked, putting their book down carefully as if they hadn’t heard the loud crack of thunder just now. They reached for their cargo shorts’ pocket and pulled out a smartphone-like device. Lance squinted at this brand new object.

 

“What is that?” Lance asked curiously, crawling closer to Pidge who was now thumbing at the small, flat device.

 

They looked up at Lance with a raised eyebrow that made the brunet realize that he was _supposed_ to know what the device was. He had only three seconds to prepare for an excuse in his head, glancing at Hunk for help but the other boy just looked at him with mild panic in his eyes. He wouldn’t be of any help.

 

“You aren’t from Oreas, are you?” Pidge said slowly, looking somewhat proud of themselves when Lance was left speechless, opening and closing his mouth over and over like a fish trying to breathe out of water. He pretty much felt like one, too, at that moment.

 

Lance knew he could’ve lied but from the way Pidge was looking at him with an all-knowing grin, he knew there was no escape from this one. “No, I’m- I’m not.”

 

Pidge seemed to tense up a bit, from either surprise that they had gotten an honest answer or the fact that they were now face to face with an Arethian. It could’ve been both but Lance was really hoping for the former because tensing up usually meant fear and he didn’t want to scare off this new potential friend, even if they were _a gremlin_.

“So, if you aren’t from Oreas that means you are from Areth,” Pidge stated, mostly to themselves like saying it out loud would make it a cold, hard fact, before clearing their throat to continue, “How?”

 

Pidge tilted their head but their eyes narrowed on Lance, silently demanding answers. There was a pure spark of curiosity in their eyes that made Lance relax a bit under this answer-demanding gaze. _At least it isn’t fear._

 

By now Hunk had made his way over to the two, he had time to join in on the conversation now that his cookies were baking in the oven. He glanced at Lance who looked back at him and they exchanges vary glances while Pidge kept their narrowed eyes on Lance, not even notifying that Hunk was now sitting on the floor with them.

 

“It’s- um, it’s a long story,” Lance said as he turned his head to face Pidge’s questioning gaze.

 

“I’ve got time. My friend’s last class doesn’t end in at least 40 minutes. Spill.”

 

Pidge didn’t leave any room for arguments, their gaze just turning more demanding the longer Lance looked at it. It was hopeless to fight them on this and he knew it.

 

With one last slightly worried glance at Hunk’s way, Lance took a deep breath and prepared to explain this whole situation.

 

“Okay, so, I got a job in this antique shop. It was just a small shop, nothing special. I was supposed to help clean around on Saturday for some money, for my new headphones, but while I was at the shop I stumbled upon this weird jewel thing that I accidentally shattered,” Lance shifted his gaze away from Pidge to his own hands that were furiously glawing at the floor in a nervous manner.

 

“And the next morning, yesterday morning to be exact, I woke up in this weird place where I was informed that I have gained magic abilities or something,” Lance felt Pidge lean closer in interest, “And then they put me to attend this school and told me I wouldn’t be allowed to return to Areth until I got this whole magic thing down.”

 

Lance didn’t dare to look up to see Pidge’s reaction but he noticed a slightly darker hand -- Hunk’s hand -- being placed on his own in a reassuring manner. _Boy, isn’t Hunk just the best._

 

The brunet smiled at this gesture, looking up at Hunk to flash a bright grin at him. He got a wider grin in reply and a mouthed _‘don’t worry’_. This managed to calm his nerves and anxieties, even if just a bit.

 

Pidge, deciding to ignore the boys’ _bro_ moment and focusing on taking in what they had just heard, slapped their hands together. This sudden noise caught Hunk and Lance off guard and they both turned to face Pidge who was still looking at Lance, their eyes shining.

 

“First; that wasn’t even that hard to explain nor was it long. Second; you got your powers from a jewel? How is that possible? I’ve never heard of such a thing and I’ve read all the possible books about it.”

 

Pidge’s eyes were sparkling and, despite it looking so innocent, Lance had a feeling he should escape before Pidge got even more questions into their head. Their face was lit up with curiosity and Lance didn’t feel like exploring how far that curiosity could go

 

“Uh, I think the jewel was called… the Tear of Seradyth?” Lance voiced, trying to look anywhere but Pidge.

 

The short spellcaster froze, their jaw dropping way too low to be safe. For a minute it was like everything was still and Lance started to think that he prefered Pidge asking non-stop questions than this silence that had now engulfed the trio in its embrace.

 

“The Tear of-,” Pidge mumbled before letting out a loud gasp, “oh shit.”

 

Both Hunk and Lance looked at Pidge, tilting their heads as they wondered if they had missed something the short spellcaster had noticed from Lance’s story. Lance was very confused mostly because Hunk hadn’t reacted to hearing the name of the gemstone, that he had shattered, like this.

 

Despite the confused looks of the two casted on them, Pidge didn’t stop to explain their reaction. They cleared their throat, looking sideways before looking back at Lance.

 

“You are supposed to keep this Areth thing a secret, right?” Pidge asked in a more serious tone. They were intently staring at Lance, the book on their lap long forgotten.

 

Lance noticed the topic change but decided to not address it. He wasn’t about to start forcefully asking question about Pidge’s reaction because he wasn’t the type of person to _pry into others’ business_. Plus he was pretty sure Pidge would stab him if he asked something they didn’t like.

 

He nodded his head, the realization now dawning on him that he wasn’t doing that good of a job with this ‘keeping Areth roots a secret’ -thing. He really needed to start pretending he actually knew what the fuck was going on most of the time.

 

Pidge stared at Lance blankly, with an unreadable expression before bursting out laughing. They doubled over and fell onto the floor from laughing so hard and Hunk and Lance could only exchange confused glances while the short spellcaster rolled on their dorm floor, laughing their heart out for reasons unknown.

 

After they finally managed to calm themselves down, their laughter turning down to short giggles, they sat back up, facing Lance straight on.

 

“You are pretty bad at keeping this to yourself so far,” Pidge stated, letting out a few more amused giggles before straightening their back to continue, “Didn’t anyone explain things to you?”

 

“Well Allura-”

 

“Allura?!” Pidge screeched so loudly and close to Lance that he almost believed that his hearing went down a notch, “As in the rumoured half goddess Allura?”

 

Lance raised a brow at the last part, just shrugging his shoulders. _Well, Allura was gorgeous enough to be goddess level but were goddesses even a thing?_

 

Pidge scoffed at this vague reply and slapped Lance’s arm in frustration which to the brunet replied with a yelp before pulling his arm further away from Pidge to avoid another slap.

 

Before Pidge could start whatever they were about to start, Hunk cleared his throat and informed the two that he was going to go check on the cookies. This made Pidge pause and look at Hunk for what was probably the first time after the three of them had stepped into this small apartment.

 

Pidge and Lance both acknowledged what was happening by nodding their heads while staring at the taller boy as he got up to head to the kitchen. The two of them followed him with their eyes for a while until he was through the kitchen door, which was when Pidge turned to Lance with a determined expression.

 

“Well whatever. I assume that you were going to say something more?” Pidge said, prompting Lance to continue his explanation from before.

 

“Thank you,” Lance scoffed in mock annoyance which only earned him an eye roll, “As I was saying, Allura explained to me about the school and about the different worlds, but she didn’t really give me any smaller details than the big picture.”

 

Pidge nodded in understanding before proceeding to tilt their head to the side with a hand on their chin as they pondered what they had just heard. They stayed silent for a while, which gave Lance time to look at Hunk who was putting the weird green cookies on a plate to cool down.

 

Lance’s attention was regained by a heavy sigh from Pidge’s direction. He whipped his head around to peer at Pidge’s face curiously.

 

“So, she just put you into this world with very little to no knowledge of any details?”

 

“That’s about right.”

 

Pidge sighed again, burying their head into their hands while leaning back. They looked so frustrated with this whole ordeal.

 

_Can’t blame them, really._

 

Pidge separated their fingers enough to peek at Lance before pulling their hands off of their face for good. There was a short moment of them just staring at Lance like they were weighing the options inside their head. They seemed to have come to a conclusion after a while.

 

“Okay. Let me just-- explain few things to you,” Pidge said, taking their smartphone-like device from the floor to shove it at Lance’s face.

 

“This here is a communication device and like many of the things we have, it has been made with Areth’s communication device as a reference, I believe you call them phones,” Pidge explained slowly as Lance examined the small device in his hands with interest, “Many things in Oreas are made to replicate the things in Areth, only difference being that we use magic energy to make our devices work while you use electricity.”

 

The phone was green with a black screen. It felt a lot lighter to an Arethian smartphone and had no business logo anywhere on it but otherwise it was identical to smartphone. It had a home button, a volume button and an on/off button. There were camera lenses on the front and on the back and a small hole to put your headphones into.

 

“Where can you plug in the charger?” Lance asked, as he noticed that the phone had no hole where to put the charger cable into.

 

Pidge snatched their phone back before stuffing it back into their pocket, “It works with magic energy so it’s also charged with magic energy. And spellcasters usually have the ability of channeling magic energy into and from things. The ability to do that is usually learnt around at the age of 10.”

 

Lance nodded trying to print all of this new information into his memory.

 

“Has anyone told you about the different kinds of spellcasters?” Pidge asked, pulling Lance out of his personal memorizing exercise.

 

The brunet shook his head causing the small spellcaster to slap their hand against their forehead, causing a quite audible slapping noise to cut through the air around them.

 

“There are many different spellcasters and the groups are distinguished by being able to use some kind of magic that usually requires a spell without reciting said spell,” Pidge explained, pushing their glasses up their nose as they started falling, “For example, a spellcaster usually needs a spell to cast lighting but a thunder spellcaster, also known as thunster, like myself, can do it without casting any spells.”

 

Pidge glanced at Lance to see if he was keeping up and he returned this skeptical glance with an amazed glint in his eyes while his mouth was curved up into an easy smile. He quickly nodded his head in understanding when the skeptical eyes didn’t change or move on.

 

“There are many other types of spellcasters than the thunster but it would take me forever to list them all. You’ll learn about it in school, anyway, but it’s good to know that there are different types from the get-go.”

 

Hunk walked over to the two as Lance answered Pidge with another enthusiastic nod. He sat down with a plate of cookies which he pushed forward to indicate that he was giving the other two a permission to eat them.

 

Both of them quickly grabbed a couple of cookies, stuffing them into their faces with pleased faces. Lance threw Hunk a quick thumbs up while he munched on the somewhat soft but also crunchy cookie in his mouth. Pidge on the other hand grabbed more cookies from the plate, earning a glare from Lance which they answered with sticking out their tongue that was covered in green cookie grumps. Lance made a disgusted face at this.

 

As Lance was eating his fifth cookie, the quiet sound of thunder boomed in the room again, causing him to almost choke on his cookie. Hunk helped him by patting his back.

 

Pidge took their phone out, opening the screen and reading something on it. They then proceeded to quickly type something before closing their phone and returning it into their pocket.

 

“My friend is done with his lecture so I should take my leave,” Pidge informed, starting to move around to put everything they owned back into their bag with the company of a couple of stolen cookies from the plate.

 

Hunk didn’t comment on it, feeling happy that his cookies were liked, but Lance glared at the small spellcaster, gesturing at the plate in mock-accusatory. He only got a small scoff from Pidge at this before the latter got up from the floor. _Wow, rude._

 

“It was fun hanging out with you guys,” Pidge said when Lance tossed them Hunk’s phone, which was like Pidge’s but instead of green it was yellow. This gained a sceptical look from Pidge.

 

“Put your phone number in there so we can keep in touch with you,” Lance explained as Hunk got up and walked towards the door, having heard a knock.

 

Pidge grinned and nodded, opening the yellow phone and typing their number into it, “I can make you your own phone if you’d like.”

 

Lance’s eyes widened as he took back the yellow phone before he blinked owlishly like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

 

“Just give me three days and I should have a phone for you,” Pidge added quickly.

 

Lance nodded for what felt like the hundredth time today. “Make it blue!”

 

“I’ll consider it,” was all Pidge could answer before a boy dressed in red and black stepped into the room.

 

And, suddenly, everything around Lance stopped, only focusing on this familiar but still unknown figure now standing before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for hurting the bois but it just had to be done ;;
> 
> The next chapter will be here in about a month, I hope...  
> writer block, if you dare to strike me again, it will be an all out war so be prepared


	3. Where Water And Fire Meet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance now have a connecting piece, a mutual friend. Will this help them see past their first meeting enough to get them to try and understand each other?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3 !! finally, good god  
> getting chapters out shouldn't take this long for me but welp, at least it's out now

Keith had been already pissed enough when Pidge had informed him that they had  _ forgotten _ their keys into his bag after putting them there for the fun of it but then they had made him walk into the dormitory, using their key to get in, to an unknown door. He was beyond ready to throw his friend out of the next window they would happen to be standing in front of. 

 

Plus he knew for sure that it had been  _ intentional _ because Pidge didn’t make mistakes like that, unless they were working on a big project for something important to themself.  _ And _ the last memory of Pidge making a mistake intentionally to get Keith to do something gave him shivers. He in no way wanted to relive that memory. 

 

But he couldn’t figure out why Pidge had told him to come to this dorm room instead of their own. To his knowledge, Pidge barely visited any of their  _ friends _ from the school because they didn’t like any of them.

 

He had tried to dig for reasons by asking after Pidge had told him to come to the fifth floor instead of the fourth floor where Pidge’s dorm was on but asking had got him nowhere. All his friend had given him were the names on the door before they had stopped answering his messages all together.

 

The phone in his hand of course held the option to call Pidge but Keith had only just remembered that was a thing you could do (he didn’t talk on the phone that much,  _ okay _ ?) and he couldn’t be bothered to call them now since he was already in front of the right door. Now all he needed to do was knock.

 

Expect, he didn’t. He just stood there, glaring at the name tags that were the same one’s Pidge had texted him.  _ ‘Hunk Garrett’  _ and  _ ‘Lance McClain’ _ , was what the it read on both the tags and the message from Pidge. 

 

He hadn’t figured out who these people were back when Pidge had sent him the message and standing there, staring at name tags wasn’t making anything more clear either. He had never heard either of the names, he didn’t really pay attention to any students in the school so it was no surprise, really. 

 

The sneaking suspicion of Pidge trying to make Keith meet new people after all of the comments ( _ or jokes _ ) of him being a loner and an emo dawned upon him the more he stared at the names. He mentally cursed Pidge for this betrayal.

 

I _ t’s usually Shiro who drags me to meet new people not Pidge. _

 

He scoffed, causing his long bangs to fly up and then flop back down against his face again. 

 

_ Well, it’s not like I  _ need _ to be friendly with these new people, so jokes on you, gremlin _ , Keith thought as he lifted his hand to the door and  _ finally _ knocked. 

 

He only knocked twice, trying to do it as gently as he in his slightly fuming state could. He didn’t even have to wait long, soon hearing a muffled  _ ‘coming’ _ and someone walking closer from the other side of the door.

 

Keith felt his whole body tense up as he heard the very usual sound of a door unlocking and before he knew it, he was stepping back as the door opened in front of him, finally revealing to him what was inside and  _ hopefully  _ answering all the questions he had spammed Pidge with just prior to the present.

 

A friendly looking head popped into view from behind the door. Standing before him at the door was a tall, dark skinned boy who smiled widely and warmly at Keith and for some  _ god forsaken _ reason it managed to calm him down just enough to hear the boy introduce himself to be Hunk.  _ That’s one name to a face, one more to go. _

 

“Keith.” Keith replied, awkwardly offering his hand forward towards the bigger hand that was lifted in front of him.

 

He shook hands with the boy who had introduced himself as Hunk and then retracted his hand back to his side, trying to seem casual but probably failing miserably.

 

“You must be the friend Pidge mentioned that had their keys?” Hunk questioned as he eyed Keith almost suspiciously. And for whatever reason, Keith felt pretty sure that it wasn’t because he was suspicious of him maybe not being Pidge’s friend but just some random person at their door. 

 

“Uh, yeah,” he muttered, stuffing his hands to his pockets in order to not seem as nervous as he felt. “Are they here?” 

 

“Yup. They are in the living room but they are busy talking with Lance,” Hunk explained, quickly pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. “Wanna come inside?” 

 

It was a casual question, spoken with a sincere tone but Keith couldn’t help but tense up. A small but panicked in the back of his head was screaming at him that it was all a trap set by Pidge and something bad was most certainly going to happen. But he knew that if him going inside the dorm room was some part of one of Pidge’s many traps, he didn’t have any choice  _ but _ to accept his fate. 

 

Pushing down the worried thoughts of what would happen, Keith nodded his head to accept the offer of going inside.

 

As Hunk stepped aside to let Keith in, he made a mental note to put some salt to Pidge’s soft drink the next time they asked him to get them some. Plus, he wasn’t going to just willingly go with what Pidge had planned, he was never the type to go down without a fight, after all. 

 

The moment he stepped into the small hallway inside the dorm room right after the entrance, he was hit with a faint scent of something so familiar but still so foreign. It was a fresh scent with a hint of sweetness to it and he found himself, to his own surprise, enjoying it.

 

He was quickly snapped back from enjoying the new but not new scent when Hunk passed past him, walking towards the lighter living room. He saw the taller boy send him a quick, apologetic smile as he did. 

 

Then two voices caught his attention. He recognized the other one to be Pidge’s while the second voice was like the scent from before, familiar but foreign at the same time. He knew he had heard it before but he couldn’t pinpoint where.

 

And before he knew it, he had stepped into the living room that emitted a cozy feeling all over his senses. It momentarily distracted him from everything else, even his still harbouring suspicion and annoyance towards Pidge. Thankfully he was soon back in full attention.

 

But instead of staring daggers at Pidge, his eyes ended up staring at two people, other one of them being Pidge, standing in front of him. Both were staring at him but with different looks on their faces. 

 

Pidge had a mischievous glint in their eyes, the corners of their lips turned up into a self-satisfied smirk. The other person was staring at him with wide shock and silent confusion. 

 

It took about only the time it takes someone to slowly count down from ten to one for Keith to recognize the other person. And then nothing. His mouth was getting drier by the second and his ability to form words buried deep into his mind, hiding from his grasp. The words that had been on his tongue melted away, giving room for quilt to feel sharp against every part of his mouth, making his whole body tense up and feel heavy with uncertainty.

 

All the while the tan boy Keith knew all to well after seeing his eyes turn from a gentle ocean into to a storm and then freeze over into cold ice was staring at him with a blank expression on his face. 

 

Slowly his expression changed, only in the smallest of ways but for Keith had lost the ability to turn away from the tan boy, he saw every small change. The boy’s long chin clenched tightly, lifting up a bit like he was unconsciously trying to be bigger than Keith, even when he was slightly taller than him already. The bridge of his nose, that was slightly upturned at the tip, crinkled a bit. This caused the faint freckles to move up. 

 

But what got Keith the most was the storm that the boy’s eyes held. It was like looking at the sea while it threw a fit, causing hurricanes and tsunamis to fill the sea as far as one could see, endangering anyone who got too close. 

 

_ Drowning. _

 

Keith felt like he was standing on an abandoned beach all alone with nowhere to run while he watched over the ocean as multiple hurricanes covered his sight of the horizon and giant waves rose and started to come right at him. 

 

_ Drowning.  _

 

It felt like his inner flame was being suffocated from its air supply by these huge waves that were getting closer and closer. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move. He was  _ scared _ . Scared of the ocean that was angry with  _ him _ . 

 

_ I’m drowning. _

 

Before the waves could hit him and put out the flame inside of him for good, however, someone from somewhere called out to the blue eyed boy, catching his, and Keith’s, attention. It was a familiar voice Keith had just heard a little while ago. 

 

“-nce! Lance!” 

 

Hunk was standing few steps away from Keith, closer to the kitchen, with his worried gaze on the boy --  _ Lance _ . 

 

The gaze of the taller boy was ever so calming, taming the sea that had just been storming inside of Lance’s eyes back into the normal, calm ocean. The calming eyes half closed as their owner smiled wide at Lance who smiled back sheepishly. 

 

Seeing that the figurative ocean had let him from its grasp and he was finally able to move, Keith turned to Pidge, doing his  _ damn bestest _ to avoid anymore eye contact with Lance. Once he zeroed in on Pidge, he glared, his insides flaming once again after almost being put off. 

 

However, they didn’t seem to care, flashing a wide grin at their friend as if this wasn’t all their fault. As if they  _ weren’t _ the one who had made Keith come here. 

 

Pidge, who had just been standing aside and watching while their friend hypothetically almost drowned, walked over to Keith who kept glaring at them. They seemed so nonchalant with the way they walked but there was no way they hadn’t noticed what was happening, they noticed  _ everything _ that  _ ever  _ happened. 

 

Even when they got to Keith, he didn’t stop glaring halfly because they deserved it and halfly because he  _ did not _ want to  _ in any circumstance _ to look at Lance again.  _ One time was more than enough, thank you. _

 

“Welp, guys, thanks for having me over, I can’t wait to hang out with you again!” Pidge said with their mock-innocent tone and Keith had never before considered murdering them as seriously as he did now. 

 

Pidge had turned to look at the other two in the room and showed them their wide smile which had probably been caused by Keith’s misery. This way they avoided the purple eyes that were trying to pore holes through their head. 

 

Keith’s gaze happened to slip from Pidge to the two and he witnessed how the two smiled back to Pidge with their own ways.

 

Lance smiled back at them with a crooked, slightly uncertain smile while Hunk smiled widely. The latino boy also offered his fist to Pidge who pumped it happily and suddenly Lance’s smile was wider, more relaxed. Thankfully, he was looking at Pidge so Keith didn’t end up in another eye contact battle.

 

Keith quickly ducked his head down to glare at the ground in order to hide the fact that he had looked at Lance again. 

 

Pidge side glanced at him and sneakily gave him a teasing smirk ( _ why? _ He did not know) before turning their attention back to Lance and Hunk, though more on Lance. 

 

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make that phone for you in exchange for some sweet  _ sweet _ information,” Pidge exclaimed, though Keith almost missed it, being deep into his own thoughts at this point. 

 

Lance tilted his head, staring at Pidge for a while with some kind of concentration and Keith cursed himself for glancing up.  _ I told you to keep looking at the ground, for fuck’s sake!  _

 

“What kind of information are we talking about?” Lance asked, lifting his finger to his chin and tapping it thoughtfully a few times. 

 

Pidge grinned wickedly ( _ never a good thing _ ) before fixing their posture just slightly. “Information about any technological device that people use in Areth.” 

 

Lance stopped then, glancing at Hunk who shrugged his shoulders before turning back to Pidge. He made a soft  _ ‘hmm’ _ sound as his eyes studied the shorter spellcaster’s face in the search for an answer,  _ whatever that was _ . 

 

After a bit of this, he leaned back from Pidge, to stand back up straight, looking satisfied with the answer he had  _ apparently _ found on Pidge’s smug looking expression. 

 

“Deal. Just make sure it’s blue,” was all Lance said before offering his hand for Pidge to shake. 

 

The two of them shook hands and then Pidge started making their way to the door, dragging Keith with them as they surged forward with a newfound determination.  

 

Keith felt that ocean gaze on his back but this time it felt cold like it had again frozen over. The feeling of it was making the dark haired boy have to suppress a shiver. As much as he wanted to glare back, to melt those icy eyes with his own fire, for once something inside of him was stopping him from acting on his impulses. 

 

Only when Pidge had yelled their  _ ‘don’t forget to get to school tomorrow’ _ , and got answers from the two boys -- ‘ _ shut up, you gremlin’  _ from Lance and ‘ _ we won’t _ ’ from Hunk -- did the doors to the dorm close, leaving the two boys inside and Keith and Pidge outside. This let Keith finally take a deep breath, shedding those cold eyes off of his back with a full shake of his body.

 

Pidge merely glanced at him with amusement in their eyes and then turned away to look forward. 

 

They took a skipping step forward and started to make their way to the other side of the building, to their own dorm. Their movements radiated with excitement and determination. 

 

_ And Keith _ ? Keith was flaming with annoyance and frustration. But he decided to leave the yelling to when he was inside of Pidge’s dorm, not wanting anyone -- mostly Lance -- to accidentally hear him exploding.

 

**\-----**

 

Pidge scoffed at Keith as he flopped down on the couch of their dorm room. Keith decided to ignore it.

“That’s not your couch, don’t get your disgusting bodily fluids all over it!” they screeched, kicking Keith so he easily, unlike usually when he fought with claws and teeth to keep annoying Pidge, fell to the floor with a loud thud. 

Suddenly he shot up to sit, quickly locking eyes with Pidge, messaging the how furious he was. 

The flames in his eyes lighted up even more when his best friend tried to avoid the eye contact by glancing around. But Keith wasn’t about to give up so he just kept staring, imagining a small flame burning a hole in Pidge. And, not even after that long of him staring at them, they gave up on avoiding and faced him straight on.

They leaned against the back of the cough, staring back at Keith on the floor with their own sparking eyes to tell him that they weren’t going down without a fight. Keith eagerly answered to this by intensifying his own glare.

Pidge let out a sight and rolled their eyes as their figure slumped down just slightly as if they were exhausted. 

“I didn’t do anything so stop looking at me like you want me to burn alive or some shit?” Pidge stated blankly. 

They jumped over the couch in fluid motion and flopped down to sit on it, facing Keith with a bored expression all the while the boy sitting on the floor had a major deja vu of this happening before. 

Keith just huffed an annoyed breath at his best friend’s general direction before turning to glare at the floor like it had heavily offended him. He scratched at the marmor tiles of the floor for a while but stopped after causing a screech when his nails suddenly sharpened.

His body jumped and he quickly withdrew his hand from the floor, more towards himself. Small claw marks had appeared on the floor and he stared blankly at them for a second before moving his attention to his now sharper claws. He gritted his teeth. 

Pidge only looked away from Keith for a minute, trying to calculate how to go about the situation. They didn’t want to upset Keith further so they finally turned back to look at their friend who was sitting on the floor, looking defeated as his whole body seemed to try to hide in plain sight, making him look a lot smaller than he actually was. 

“I was curious. He seemed to have caught your attention and rarely anyone does so I thought maybe I should gather some info of him since I had never seen him around.” Pidge leaned back, looking at the ceiling. “Plus the fact that I didn’t know who he was when I literally know everything that goes around the database of the school, which includes transfers, was  _ outrageous _ . So I went to do some research on him myself.”

Keith looked up at Pidge, his eyes now rid of the flame of anger. His eyes were actually quite blank as he tilted his head forward to nod. It was to tell Pidge that he was listening and no longer  _ that _ angry with them.

“Did you find anything interesting?” Keith asked, sounding a bit hesitant. He regretted his question immediately when Pidge perked up at his question, eyes hungry for the knowledge they could gain from just Keith’s body language and facial expressions. 

Pidge was an expert on reading Keith and he knew that. He knew that even the smallest of scoffs and movement of eyes could tell Pidge how much he knew of the situation with Lance, maybe they could even read him so well that the information he had was already clear to them.

“Well, he’s from Areth,” Pidge informed in casual manner, looking intently at Keith all the while.

Keith felt shivers run down his spine but he tried to suppress them in order to keep how much he knew as a secret. He was probably going to end up unsuccessful but he  _ could  _ try.

“Yeah, I heard you two talking about it,” he replied as casually as he could but still trying to seem surprised enough like he hadn’t known Lance’s origin.

This didn’t fool Pidge and Keith could see it in their expression. In actuality, Keith was sure they had known from the very beginning, whenever this whole thing had even begun.

“He’s pretty bad at keeping it low. Well, maybe it’s partly Allura’s fault for not explaining the smaller details well enough. Not that anyone could learn all the information in  _ that short _ amount of time,” Pidge stated, now moving their eyes back to the ceiling.  _ They know. _

“What else?” Keith asked warily, trying to fish for how much information Pidge actually had about the whole situation. 

Pidge eyed him for a while, most likely trying to decide whether to play along with him or to keep him from what he wanted for a little bit longer. But then something seemed to dawn upon them, like they had just realized something, and their expression darkened, looking a bit sheepish, wary even.

“Tear of Seradyth. He mentioned getting his powers from that.” 

Keith had known that. He had known but he still couldn’t help his body from tensing up and his fist clenching into fists at the mention of the matter. It made him feel sick, lost and cold. His whole posture changed as the words  _ ‘you’ll never be like everyone else. You’ll always be different’  _ swam inside his mind, taunting him non-stop.

Suddenly, the taste of blood was in his mouth and the scent of iron felt heavy against his nose. That was what snapped him back to the current moment. 

It took him a moment to figure out he had bitten his own lip hard enough to make it bleed. It was quite baffling that the taste had been what had snapped him back, not the pain of his skin breaking as his shaper-than-usual teeth dug into it. He licked his lips, wiping some of the blood away, swallowing it back into his system. 

Pidge had parted their lips and was now eyeing Keith as his whole body came back to full attention. He looked up, meeting Pidge’s uncertain gaze and expecting them to give him more information about the exchange. But they didn’t deliver. 

“So, you know of the Tear of Seradyth and it being the source of his powers. How, exactly?” 

Keith felt a lump grow in his throat at the question. And he knew it had nothing to do with him trusting Pidge with the information. He knew it was because he felt a pang of quilt everytime he recalled any of his interactions with Lance. It has started to feel especially painful after he had witnessed the ocean eyes frozen over with hurt and hatred. He had to take a moment before he could even find his voice again.

But thankfully, Pidge allowed him enough time to gather himself, not expecting him to be able to answer immediately. And finally, with the help of the wordless support his friend was sending him, he managed to open his mouth and form words. 

“I was there when Shiro got a notice from the council,  _ from Allura _ , that ‘a huge amount of brand new magic energy had been detected in Areth’ and I insisted on going with him after the council brought the source of the said energy to the higher ups.” Keith paused, glancing up at Pidge while swallowing the growing lump in his throat. “And the moment I heard how the source -- Lance -- had got his powers, I- I almost burned him.” 

The words felt as heavy in the air as they had felt in his mouth. It was like being enveloped into a blanket made of lead. On Pidge, however, his words didn’t seem to have the same kind of effect. 

They tilted their head, closing their tightly eyes for a moment, letting out a soft humming sound like the ones computers made when they were rebooted. This went on for a while before they opened their eyes again and janked their head in a way that could make anyone feel a strain on their neck out of empathy. But they didn’t even seem that bothered by it.

There was nothing more Keith could say so he kept quiet, watching Pidge carefully as they mentally debated on all the possible answers they could give Keith. Though, they did look like they were quite certain of what to say next.

“You didn’t really burn him. Plus, you can always set the record straight by apologizing.” 

The statement sounded so easy when Pidge said it so carefreely that it made Keith almost consider their words as an option.  _ Almost _ . 

Keith scoffed at the bizarre statement before he could even consider stopping himself. 

“Yeah, that would go  _ so well _ . ‘Oh, sorry I almost burned you alive’.” Keith left out the other thing that was nagging at the back of his head, that being  _ the words _ he had said to Lance just previously today. He didn’t want to tell Pidge about it, or more like he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Pidge snorted at his reply, nodding their head forwards to look at Keith from under their bangs and eye lashes, giving him the  _ stop-being-ridiculous _ look. Keith answered this by mirroring the gesture and the look.

“It’s a start, at least.” Pidge blew some air at his bangs, causing them to fly up and then flop back to their previous position. This gesture made them seem kind of bored with the whole ordeal. “From what I gathered, Lance is a pretty forgiving person.”

That statement made Keith reconsider the idea of apologizing to Lance in a new light. Maybe it was a  _ start _ just like Pidge had said earlier. 

Of course, there was the chance Lance would be appalled by Keith apologizing to him, taking it as Keith thinking that the whole thing could be buried away and be forgotten just by some mere apology. This thought _did_ make him swallow thickly but he didn’t want to just leave it at that. He may not have yet known what he wanted from this new boy from Areth but he certainly wasn’t looking to be _mortal_ _enemies_ with him.

“I guess you’re right…” Keith muttered, finally. He admitting this cause a wide smile with a smug tint to it appear on Pidge’s face. But despite the teasing demeanor, they looked approving of his decision nonetheless.

“Hey, emo boy, of course I’m right,” Pidge deadpanned while getting off the couch to head towards the kitchen. “You should know that I’m smarter than you by now.”

Keith let out a huff of breath, failing to make it sound more annoyed than amused. He already knew Pidge was very satisfied with themself.  _ Not that Pidge being like that was a bad thing, it just sometimes felt dreadful. _

While Pidge made their way to the kitchen, Keith blanked out while observing their movements, slowly getting lost into his own thoughts. He couldn’t help but feel the all too familiar anxiety creep into his veins, into his bones, when he thoughts about his next interaction with Lance.  _ Just apologizing would be difficult. _

but while it did sound scary and made him anxious with all the uncertainty, he did feel a little amount of excitement swarming inside of him, warming up his insides that had gone cold with fear. He was afraid but he also wanted to see what would happen.  _ Plus _ , considering something before doing it had never been something Keith oftenly found himself doing. 

Something slightly cold bumped against his right cheek, startling him out of his thoughts and the adrenaline fueling him. He immediately zeroed on the cold, and kind of wet, thing that had  _ hit  _ him. He was met with a glass with some kind of orange liquid with ice inside of it.

Keith sifted his head, following the arm holding the glass up to meet his friend’s eyes. They were now standing next to him, having come back from the kitchen part of the dorm they had gone to. They showed him a quick, small smile before bumping the glass against his forehead.

“Drink something cold and cool down. I don’t need you going on an overheat from thinking, especially not inside of my dorm room,” Pidge explained, lowering the glass in their hands so Keith could easily take it into his own grasp.

The glass felt cold against the palms of his hands and the tip of his fingers as he took it. He knew his naturally warm ( _maybe more_ _like hot_ ) hands would heat up the drink soon enough but even then he enjoyed the short moment of something cold against his ever-so-hot skin. It was something he rarely got to enjoy, after all.

_Actually_ , not many people knew it but Keith’s body temperature tended to get higher than even an average fire spellcaster’s -- _also_ _known as flarester_ \--  if he was having difficulty with controlling his emotions. Usually giving him something cold to melt or warm up helped him calm down just slightly. It took him away from all the messy thoughts that were making his emotions overheat in the first place. 

Keith turned to look at Pidge with a thankful smile before he gulped down some of the cool liquid. It warmed up quite quickly in his mouth but he drank it all up anyway, enjoying the few seconds it stayed cool inside of his mouth. 

After an experiment with Pidge, the two of them had come to the conclusion that by the time a cool drink was swallowed by Keith, it was nearly at its boiling point but he himself didn’t really feel it since his body was made to deal with high temperatures Being a flamster helped when one had to digest anything slightly hot or survive in hot places. Keith loved hot and spicy food and because of how his body worked, he could enjoy the taste without feeling like his mouth was burning.

Keith drank all the liquid and threw back the small pieces of ice that were left from the ice cubes inside the drink. He let out a satisfied humm at the coldness of the ice that lasted a tad bit longer than the drink’s coolness had.

“Feeling better?” Pidge asked, side eyeing Keith from their reclaimed spot on the couch where they were sipping on their own helping of the liquid that tasted a bit like water mixed with sugar with some fruity taste added into it. 

“Yeah,” Keith mumbled while a small smile played on his lips.

He then got up from the ground, nodding curtly at Pidge who nodded back. Their way of farewell.

They never changed words when the other was leaving, it had always felt too final for them to do. And besides, both of them agreed that saying ‘ _ see you later _ ’ was too cheesy.

Keith left Pidge’s dorm with less doubt than he had had when he had stepped in but the same amount of confusion remained. 

_ I’ll decide what to do... tomorrow. _

**\-----**

 

Lance leaned forward over the lunch table he and Hunk had luckily found ( _ and claimed _ ) for themselves when they had arrived late to the dining hall. It had been full so Lance has got worried that maybe they would have to eat their lunch somewhere else, most likely while standing since the school didn’t seem to have much of spare chairs in the school halls.

It was difficult to even begin to count how many people that had arrived after them and some others had walked around in the search for a seat to eat at, just for it to end up with them walking out of the dining hall with their gross looking food ( _ bless Hunk for making and packing them lunch to school _ ). Lance found it kind of sad, really. 

_ Someone should tell the higher ups that the dining hall is too small compared to the amount of students. _

Someone letting out a sudden scream startled Lance and then made him sigh when a muffled laughter followed. There was even a some incomprehensible words being said by the person who had first screamed and then laughed. They were probably talking to their friend.

In actuality, sitting there in a room that was never quiet, reminded Lance majorly of home. His family was big and had always been quite louder than any other family of the same size. There had never been a totally quiet moment in his house. And because of this, unlike for most people, the constant sound of chatter and movement made Lance feel himself slowly drifting off to sleep.

His tiredness had something to do with it, too, of course. It was hard for him to  _ not  _ be tired when the thoughts of Keith, more precisely his words, had rung in his ear, inside of his mind, all night. It had made it impossible for him to fall asleep without the ghost of Keith appearing into his dream version of the school, repeating that same string of words over and over until in an attempt to escape it, Lance startled himself awake. His whole mind had seemed to agree with Keith, making sure he remembered that he didn’t belong here, he was just an  _ outsider _ .

So, despite all of his attempts to stay awake, Lance dozed off with his forehead flush against the cool, wooden-like lunch table. He was just about to fall into deeper sleep when he heard,  _ and felt _ , someone heavily banging their hands against the table, waking Lance right back up.

He sat up straight, or more like sprung up and straightened his back, turning to face the direction he assumed the bang had come from. His eyes scanned the room, his vision still being slightly hazy from his  _ very quick  _ nap. 

It took his a while to find that the source of the sound had been someone dropping something made of some metal to the floor. He let out a deep sigh as he heavily dropped his head against the table once, feeling too tired to lift it back up again.

The next thing that caught his attention was Hunk pushing forward the small box that Lance knew contained his  _ Hunk-made _ lunch. That gave him some energy to lift his head up to smile thankfully at his friend as he pulled the offered box closer to himself.

Hunk soon offered him some cutlery to eat his food with and he mumbled a thanks that was accompanied by the most energetic grin he could manage with only so little sleep. Hunk returned the smile with his own nonetheless.

Lance was just about to start eating the special version of paella Hunk had tried to recreate once Lance had told him that is was a dish that his mom used to make often for the kids whenever they were feeling down or stressed about something ( _ more proof that Hunk was actually an angel sent from the heavens to make everyone happy _ ) when another box was dropped on the table, next to his own box. 

The box was like the ones the school lunch was served in unlike the one with his lunch inside of it. Hunk had told him that all the dish-boxes, _what they were called_ _apparently_ , he owned had been made by Hunk’s parents. Lance prefered how Hunk’s boxes looked in comparison to the school’s boxes. They were way more interesting in design, having many different but cute carvings on them while the school’s were just blank and plain.

Finally, Lance looked over to the dropper of the box. It ended up being Pidge.

“Hi, you  _ nerds _ ,” they greeted as they pushed Lance with their food to tell him to move over.

Lance complied hesitantly, scooting to the other end of the long bench, quickly snatching the meal Hunk had  _ blessed _ him with to his hands. He opened the box and once more thanked the heavens for blessing him with Hunk for a roommate. 

The kind of familiar looking paella stared back at him as he stared at the insides of the box. It wasn't the perfect replica despite Oreas having many of the same kinds of ingredients and such as Areth, but Lance mostly thought the differences in the dish were because he couldn’t really remember the whole recipe down to every smallest detail, having heard it only few times.

Hunk had also told Lance to tell him more recipes when he recalled any since he wanted to try making more Arethian dishes. He had informed that Lance’s mom’s paella was the first on his list and it had made the latino smile.

While Hunk has been talking to Pidge, he was also side eyeing Lance heavily, trying to catch his reaction to the dish. This was Lance’s que to stuff some of the food into his mouth, which he gladly did.

Lance was happy to note that the paella tasted a lot like the one of his mom’s and he made sure to make Hunk know by sending him a thumbs up, declaring the first experiment a success. Hunk whooped happily, victoriously waving his fist in the air.

Their whole exchange got a eye roll from Pidge before they moved to open their own box to eat some of what the food the school was offering. By the look on their face, Lance could tell they weren’t happy with how the food looked, just like most students here as Lance had noted previously.

Pidge poked the food in front of them suspiciously with a fork, before pushing the box aside, silently declaring that they weren’t going to eat whatever was in there. Lance could sympathize with that as he had had pretty much the same reaction yesterday when he had made the mistake of deciding to taste the school food here.

Hunk,  _ being the angel that he was _ , offered Pidge a sandwich he had packed with him for snack just incase the day’s longness became too much and caused a gnawing hunger to either of them. Pidge snatched the sandwich from him gladly, immediately starting to nibble on it like they hadn’t had food for days.

“So, what were you two talking about?” Lance casually asked, waving the fork in his hand in the air in circles before he pointed Pidge with it.

They leaned back to avoid getting stabbed in the forehead with the fork, still nibbling on the sandwich, looking more than content with the taste. It took a bit but Pidge managed to let go of the sandwich long enough for them to manage to speak.

“Nothing much. I was just curious what kind of schedules both of you have.” Pidge shrugged with the already half finished sandwich in their hands. Soon enough they were munching on it again.

Lance, too, was munching on his food with a fast pace ( _ who wouldn’t? Hunk was an amazing cook _ ), trying to finish it as fast as possible. But he did take a long enough break to answer Pidge while Hunk offered the two of them napkins, which they both gladly took to wipe their mouths clean.

“I have a class that’s about the different spellcaster types and how to use the given powers to different things. I think it was called ‘typings’ class, or something?” Lance noted after wiping his mouth with the napkin. “Maybe I’ll learn what type I am.” 

Pidge hummed while eating, obviously only half-listening to Lance and not really progressing what he saying. Or so Lance had thought, but then finally what he had said seemed get through to the small spellcaster and suddenly the almost eaten sandwich fell from their hands onto the table mid-bite.

Before Lance could even begin to question their reaction or the ever-growing knowing smirk on their face, they had grabbed the sandwich from the table back into their hands and were biting into it as if it hadn’t dropped in the first place. But the small, knowing smirk never faded from their face.

Even Hunk was giving them a quizzical look when Lance over glanced at him insace he knew something about this sudden behaviour.  _ Apparently not. _

Hunk noticed Lance looking over at him and quickly shot a small smile at him while shrugging his shoulders. Lance returned the smile with his own one just before he turned back to Pidge.

The thunster had somehow managed to eat the whole sandwich in the short time, despite just previously taking forever to get it eaten for savoury purposes, in during which Lance had been looking away. They had eaten it thoroughly, leaving no evidence of the sandwich ever existing behind. He had to admit it was fairly impressive.  _ But that’s not the point right now! _

But in the end, Lance couldn’t even get one word or as much as a question, out of his mouth before Pidge was talking.

“Well, I’ll have to take my leave now. I still have a meeting with a teacher before the next class! See you around!” Pidge informed as they slumped their backpack over their shoulder.

In the matter of seconds they had got up and were walking out through the dining hall doors,  _ ironically  _ like a lighting, leaving the abandoned lunch food for Hunk and Lance to clean up.

Lance squinted at the doors as they closed after Pidge exited.

The doors stayed closed for a few minutes, in during which he never stopped staring at them, until a group of students Lance didn’t know walked out through it, chatting about something seemingly interesting. Then the doors banged close again.

Lance then turned to Hunk who was blankly staring at the doors, his face a mixture of multiple emotions that could all be generalized as confusion. He pretty much looked as confused as Lance felt. Though, for Lance, within that confusion was nervousness.

Somehow, Lance ended up feeling nervous for his next class.  _ Thanks, Pidge. _

**\-----**

 

“Why are the stairs so damn long?!” Lance rasped out after he finally managed to make his way to the top floor the quickest he had ever ran up a flight of stairs.

_ The person who decided to make me have a class just after lunch is probably a person who loves to see others suffer. _

Lance stopped just in front of the door to the classroom he was supposed to be in and he noted,  _ thankfully _ , that the door was still open which meant he had arrived just in time. Unless the teacher was the kind of person who left the door open to give the students a false hope.  _ What an evil thing to do.  _

He felt like he was close to passing out from the lack of oxygen, his lungs burned with every breath he took. Even his throat hurt from how hard he was breathing. But he had to get to class because he barely had two minutes to spare if the teacher was the type to be on time and punish anyone who wasn’t there before themselves.

Once he finally managed to catch his breath, which he tries to do the quickest he could ever do, causing him to feel slightly lightheaded, he pushed the wooden door open and stepped into the classroom. 

He was about to celebrate surviving, despite the whole school system going against him, when his body betrayed him and he started falling forwards, towards the floor. His head was spinning and everything looked kind of blurry but he still somehow managed to brace himself for the fall by putting his arms in front of him so they would hit the floor first and make the fall less painful on his face. But he never got to even touch the floor.

“Aloe Weith!” Unknown words burst through the air and suddenly Lance was floating just a bit above the ground, staring at it as his arms flailed out of reflex. A few gasps filled the now silent room.

Lance didn’t know if he was happy to have probably everyone’s eyes on him or if he was embarrassed that he had so many witnesses to him almost falling to the floor on his second day of school. He decided to leave that worrying for later since he was still in said situation and worrying about it right at that moment would only make matters worse.

He then caught onto the sound of someone’s steps coming towards him and saw them stopping right in front of him if those black boots that were now in his line of sight were anything to go by. And that was when he started to float up. 

It felt kind of weird, floating up slowly, watching as the floor inched further and further away from him but he couldn’t complain when the other case scenario would have been him falling on his face and trying to get up and pretend like he had planned that all along.

He had descended higher off the ground, but not high enough to see his saviour’s face, when his body was slowly positioned into a vertical angle and the spell disappeared, letting him fall to the floor, safely on his feet. Lance felt like he could finally bring himself to breath out even if was still a bit painful after running for so long.

After managing to find the ability to breath regularly, and to actually  _ talk _ , he lifted his face to thank his saviour even if it felt kind of embarrassing with knowing how much audience the whole ordeal had had,  _ and still had _ . But he was raised to be thankful by his mom and he wasn’t about to stray from what he had been taught to do in situations like this.

Purple eyes were the first thing he saw after lifting his head. Their owner was standing far enough to not be too uncomfortable but close enough to make Lance jump back by instinct after making eye contact with such dark eyes.  _ It was like staring straight into space. _

Somewhere deep in Lance’s subconscious the person’s identity floated about, echoing from the theoretical walls of his mind. He heard the name, could connect it to the face he was staring at but wasn’t able to quite progress all the needed information. All he could do was stare without any other thought.

Keith’s black, long bangs were comfortably resting on his forehead, shading his eyes just the way Lance could remember from the  _ four _ times they had met already. There was a fleeting thought of the black hair looking soft but it was so quick that he didn’t even have to brush it off or stuff it into the  _ we’ll-think-about-this-later  _ part of his brain.

Then the realization _ hit _ him and he actually progressed the information that the person standing before him  _ aka his saviour  _ was indeed Keith who had been very clear on what he thought of Lance. The latino was starting to question his luck because  _ who the fuck was unlucky enough to run into the person who hates your guts in a huge school on multiple occasions(?) _ .

The boy in front of him opened his mouth, as if to say something but never managed to get even to the first syllable out when another voice, full of the power of an authority, startled everyone into full attention, Keith and Lance included. In only mere seconds, everyone’s eyes were glued to the teacher’s desk and the tall person standing behind it in respecting silence.

“Now, if you two would just take your seats,” the man,  _ most likely the teacher _ , assumed Lance, said with a voice that left no room for arguments. 

Keith sneaked a quick glance at Lance, that didn’t go unnoticed by the mentioned boy, before he hesitantly stepped away from the bot in question, moving towards the mass of the other class to take a seat as had been suggested by the teacher. He sat on a chair that already had a leather-looking bag tangling from the chair. Lance assumed it to be Keith’s bag, not that he really  _ gave a fuck _ even if it was.

Lance, too, made his way to sit somewhere in the classroom, ending up sitting next to some girl who looked nice enough,  _ and definitely was way too pretty for words _ . She didn’t look as much of a human as the other people in the room, her hair was blue-green and looked a bit like ocean waves more than actual hair. Her skin was a way lighter shade of blue compared to her hair. It also had some light green markings on it that Lance didn’t think were tattoos. 

An ever growing curiosity started to rise inside of him but he knew better than to straight up ask about the girl’s outer appearance since that would give out the fact that he wasn’t actually from Oreas to a  _ yet another _ person he didn’t know well.

The authority filled voice from before echoed through the classroom, snapping Lance’s attention back to focus. He channeled his whole attention onto the teacher, thus bringing a stop to himself side-eying the girl who was already looking forward in full attention.

The class started with the teacher introducing himself as Ulaz Sospes and giving a brief introduction on what they would be learning from this class. 

Lance ended up missing some of the introduction to the subject because, for some  _ god forsaken  _ reason, his eyes kept trailing back to Keith who was sitting few rows away from Lance, more close to the front and a bit to the right. He was actually a bit annoyed that he kept getting stuck on Keith instead of the beauty next to him.

But, despite his own mental willings for his brains and eyes to pay attention to anything but the dark haired boy, he couldn’t get himself to stop giving the other boy attention. He even kind of found himself wishing that Keith would turn around to look at him which he promptly blamed to wanting to have the other boy see his sharp glare of disapproval.

_ If looks could kill-- _

There was a soft poke on Lance’s shoulder from the side where the girl with the obvious ocean vibe sat and the latino turned to look at her. She was amusedly smiling at him, and the moment she noticed she had gained his attention, she nodded towards the front of the room, towards the board. Lance obliged to this unknown girl’s wishes just because he really needed something else in his head than  _ Keith _ .

The teacher, Ulaz, suddenly stuck out his weird stick thing, that Lance thought he had previously seen lying on the teacher’s desk, and pointed it at the class as a whole. It was like he had got it to his hand too fast for anyone to even see it.  _ Who knows how he did it, but he certainly did it. _ He didn’t really smile as he looked over the class, keeping up his poker face which was starting to make Lance reckon that the tall man didn’t actually  _ know _ how to smile.

“Anyone up for giving a quick example?” he asked, making the question sound more like an order. 

The classroom fell silent, unmoving as no one barely even dared to breath in the fear of accidentally moving and catching the teacher’s eye. It would have been a hilarious sight if Lance hadn’t jumped onto the bandwagon, trying to be as unseeable and unnoticable as humanly possible.

Finally, the sound of a chair clattering against the floor echoed through the silent and still classroom snapping everyone’s heads, including the teacher’s, towards this sound. A person had stood up from his seat and was lifting his hand.

_ Keith. _

Ulaz looked to approve and nodded to inform Keith that he was allowed to walk to the front of the class to give the example. And that’s how everything started to go down the drain  _ and fast _ .

Lance’s eyes locked on to the boy that had just stood up and was now making his way to the front with the most casually confident air floating around him, covering him in it. It made the latino  _ furious _ . 

Lance suddenly felt almost  _ compelled _ to stand up and also walk to the front of the class just because Keith had done so. He felt the feeling of competitiveness boiling somewhere deep inside of him. The  _ need _ to prove himself to Keith, to be better than him, started rising like waves during a storm. And before he knew it, he was standing with everyone’s wide, surprised eyes on him, those  _ idiotic _ purple eyes included.

The loud beat of his own heart and the rush of adrenaline being the only things thriving him to move, Lance made his way to the front, to stand next to Keith. He glared at the shorter boy who answered his glare with a surprised blink which the latino decided to not acknowledge, instead turning around to look at the teacher.

The teacher didn’t look surprised, the same poker face on him like a program that only had one setting. But there was something that screamed disapproval in his eyes which suddenly made Lance want to backpedal and  _ fast _ . He didn’t have any plan beyond walking here and proving Keith he was capable, even more so than the aforementioned boy himself. His blood ran cold and the words he hadn’t even thought about slipped from his mind, never to be found. He was about to take off running. Who knows where he could run but anything was better than  _ here _ .

But a familiar but yet still so uncharted voice made him rethink his plan of running away, giving him some of his courage back in a rush.

“More examples are always better,” Keith blurted out.

The words majorly threw Lance off and he turned to look at the dark haired boy in astonishment. Even Ulaz had some surprise on his face made of stone. The class quickly glanced at him, too, if only to acknowledge that he had spoken up.

Keith looked very uncomfortable, Lance could  _ feel _ how the pool of awkwardness inside Keith grew faster than ice melted after being dropped into burning fire. He could see the cloud of anxiety around the other boy’s head, trying to choke him with its heaviness. And suddenly, Lance was opening his mouth, ready to have the speech of a lifetime.

“Yeah, it could help with, like, comparing differences between spellcaster types.”  _ God, I really hope I’m a different type of spellcaster than Keith.  _ “Diversity and all that junk. It’d make things a tad bit more interesting, not that they aren’t already, but there is always room for improvement, am I right?” 

_ Okay, maybe it  _ wasn’t _ the speech of a lifetime. _

Lance anxiously glanced up at teacher, feeling fear that he had stepped over his boundaries as a student twist inside of his chest. Staring back at that poker face wasn’t helping the major anxiety of  _ I-may-have-fucked-up _ so Lance turned to his  _ only _ source of encouragement; Keith. He didn’t dare to look at the class because they had  _ suspiciously _ become very quiet after Lance’s ramble and Keith became his only choice even with how their relationship was.

What he expected to face was hard purple eyes drilling through his skull, trying to kill him on the spot. But what he  _ actually saw _ was something totally different and unexpected. 

Keith’s eyes were wide with surprise, like he hadn’t expected Lance to step in to help him in any circumstance, even the thing had direct effect on Lance himself. He looked baffled but there was also some kind of glint in his eyes that could only be compared to how children’s eyes shone when they were praised or got something they had wished for. It made Lance’s stomach do a sudden flip and his face to grow just slightly warmer but he didn’t look away

“I agree,” mumbled Keith, while he was still holding eye contact with Lance. He then  _ slowly _ turned to look at Ulaz as if he was having hard time looking away from Lance. The thought made Lance’s stomach do another flip.

“I agree too!” a sudden interjection came from the general direction of the students, breaking through the tension in the air in an enthusiastic manner.

Lance whipped his head around, so did Keith, to see the girl who sat next to him smiling with the glint of curiosity in her eyes. Lance immediately found himself to like this girl beyond finding her pretty to look at.

Suddenly the whole class burst into an almost harmonious grunts, hums and mumbles of agreement. Everyone was nodding their heads, some looking to their friends to see if they agreed. The _whole_ class agreed.

Lance felt a smile on his face when he turned to look back at Ulaz. While he was turning he noticed Keith watching him with a soft smile softening his features, but, for the current objective, Lance had to push aside what he had seen for later overthinking.

“Alright. Do both of you know your spellcaster types?” Ulaz asked, looking at the two of them, expecting to hear a positive answer from them both.

Suddenly Lance was feeling the anxiety sneaking back to loom over him, prickling on his skin in a way that made him feel chills. But once again he was saved from trying to explain himself.

“Yes. We do,” Keith bursted out before Lance could even manage to think of a way out of this.

The latino glanced at the boy next to him with uncertainty and worry, only to get a mouthed  _ ‘just follow my lead’ _ from the boy next to him. He gave him a confused look but nodded his head nonetheless.

Keith reached his hand forward, making a motion with his fingers that were telling Lance to take his hand. He gave a suspicious look but Keith was looking at him earnestly, waiting for him to take his hand.

With a bit of hesitation, a tan hand grabbed onto the offered paler one. 

Lance saw Keith’s lips moving with silent words, his face turned away from the teacher so he wouldn’t see. The latino couldn’t catch what he was mouthing but it seemed unnecessary for him to try and decipher those soft lip movements.

After a short moment of Keith’s lips moving, the hand Lance was holding was taken over by red flames. By instinctual reaction, Lance wanted to yank his hand away but Keith kept his grip on the tan hand tight, not letting the other pull away.

It took only a little for Lance to realize that his own hand, the one holding Keith’s, was covered in water that matched the shade of blue his eyes were. It felt like silk against his skin, not making his hand wet like was expected of normal water, just like the fire on Keith’s hand didn’t have the burning sensation to it. 

Lance looked at the barely see-through water around his whole hand, busy being fascinated by it when suddenly an echo-y voice rang through his head with a voice he could easily recognize.

_ [Don’t look so obvious about not knowing what’s happening.] _

Lance looked up at Keith, surprised that he had heard his voice inside of his head. He didn’t find any answers to the many questions in his mind on the other boy’s face. But he did find a small, slightly smug smirk. He managed to glare at this annoying but still somewhat attractive smirk before Keith’s lips dropped it and were once again forming silent words with rapid speed.

And then Keith let go of his hand.

As Keith stepped back a few steps and turned to face the students, Lance followed his example and did the same but to the opposite direction. He side-eyed Keith as sneakily as he could to figure what he was supposed to do next.

Keith extended and moved his hand so the back of it was facing towards the ground. He looked at the one whole flame surrounding his hand as it broke into many smaller flames that suddenly shot up into the air. They spiraled around each other like in a dance, going higher and higher until they almost touched the ceiling. Before they could reach the high ceiling of the room, they stopped and started falling down towards Keith’s hand, their speed increasing with every blink of an eye. Before they could touch Keith’s hand however, they made a audible  _ ‘whump’  _ sound and disappeared.

Then Keith nodded to Lance as subtly as he could, a gesture which no one seemed to notice.

Lance took a while to shake himself out of his amazement with what he had just witnessed. When he eventually managed to snap his attention back to what  _ he _ was supposed to be doing, he did the same movement with his hand as Keith had previously done.

The water around his hand started to move, copying what had happened with the flame. It spiraled up in smaller chunks of water until it almost reached the ceiling. There it stopped and fell back down towards Lance with increasing speed but it never managed to make it all the way to his hand as it evaporated with a small hiss just before it touched his skin.

Lance managed to push away his astonishment, twisting his face to look like everything that had just occurred with the water was his doing. But he did let a small smile slip since it didn’t blow his cover as he turned his head just enough so he could look at Keith. He found that Keith was actually looking back at him with a small smile of his own.

The whole class was soon filled with the sound of clapping but Lance found himself unable to look away from Keith. And only partly because he wanted to know how Keith had done any of this. From making it look like Lance was controlling the water to the talking inside his head thing.

He,  _ once again _ , didn’t get any answers, though, as Keith quickly turned to look at Ulaz, breaking the eye contact he had had with Lance. Then Lance caught the movement of Ulaz nodding in approval and gesturing them to move back to their seats just as he side glanced at the teacher.

**\-----**

 

After class, and thanking the girl sitting next to him _,_ now known to him as Plaxum, Lance finally got his chance to _maybe_ talk to Keith and get some of the questions he had got into his head during the class answered. He also needed to thank him for backing him up.

Lance felt a rush of unknown panic upon noticing that Keith was no longer inside the classroom when he stopped chatting with Plaxum. He had no idea why those answers he wanted were so important to him that he panicked at the chance of not getting them from Keith. But before he knew it, he was running out of the classroom to search for the flamester.

It took him a bit of looking around frantically before he spotted a person with a familiar mop of black hair heading down the stairs. He almost tripped over himself as he took of towards the stairs.

Keith was already halfway down the stairs when Lance got to the start of the staircase. Many people were also heading down, the mass of people almost pushing Lance dangerously towards the stairs but he managed to keep his ground.

“Hey, Keith!” Lance called out to the boy, catching his attention. It catched a few more others’ attention but most scurried on upon realizing that it wasn’t anything too important. Some kept their eyes on Lance, though.

Despite all the people staring at him, Lance didn’t miss the way Keith flinched to halt at his voice before hesitantly turning around to face him. He looked kind of scared, almost like he was afraid to actually talk to Lance even after what had happened just moments ago in the classroom. It was baffling, to say the least.

But then there was also the bang of quilt as Lance realized they had never actually introduced each other which would make it weird for Lance to call out Keith’s name.  _ Maybe that’s why he flinched. _

The silence between them carried on but it was so deafening that Lance couldn’t even find himself to hear all the noises around him. And then, his and Keith’s eyes met.

At that moment Lance suddenly realized he hadn’t actually planned how he would come forward and even  _ talk _ to Keith. After all, from all of their past interactions, he was pretty sure Keith despised him with the way he acted towards him. And Lance had been cold to the dark haired boy himself, too.

Keith looked slightly alarmed standing there, locked in an staring contest with Lance and it felt  _ off _ . Lance had wanted to hate Keith but for some reason seeing him so anxious about this whole interaction made Lance question what he actually felt. Plus, the other had majorly helped him during class which had brought him to talk to him in the first place.

But all of the questions Lance had previously had were wiped away the longer he stared into those dark eyes. The only words bubbling in his mind, wanting to be said, were  _ ‘I’m sorry’  _ and  _ ‘thank you’ _ .

_ I never did stop to consider his reasoning, did I? _ Lance thought, feeling a wave of quilt hit him and leave him feeling too empty for words.  _ I never wondered if he had his reasons. _

Lance drew a deep breath, getting ready to let out the words that wanted to burst out, to apologize for his cold actions when suddenly Keith was stepping forward, up the stair steps, closer to Lance with a nervous air to him. He was only a few stair steps away from Lance when he came to a halt and bit his lips, breaking the held eye contact by glancing away before he opened his mouth.

“I- I’m sorry…” Keith’s voice was weak and full of remorse, so quiet that Lance barely managed to catch them even with as little distance as they now had. They felt hesitant but warm, like a flame that wanted to warm someone up but was afraid of burning them in the progress.

The mood shifted from there, giving Lance the boost of confidence he had been in dire need for. Keith words, without him even knowing it, gave way for Lance to bring himself back up.  _ It’s kind of ironic. _

“I’m sorry, too.”

Keith’s head whipped up from where he had casted his eyes to the ground after apologizing. His face was painted with shock and confusion, his eyes wide, searching Lance’s face cautiously for some kind of explanation. Lance noticed this and realized that he  _ seemingly _ had to explain why he too was apologizing.

“Since, I was kind of cold to you? And started lowkey hating you without actually knowing you? You probably had your own reasons for how you reacted and how you proceeded after, it’s not like I would know.” Lance was rambling but was still careful enough to leave out any mention of Keith’s words hurting him. “Plus, you apologized so no way in hell am I letting you be only one doing that. I’m clearly the more sympathetic one amongst us two, okay?”

He winked at the other boy while flailing his hands around dramatically to make it obvious that the last part was meant as a joke. It even paid off when he heard Keith scoff in amusement all the while his features softened the longer he looked at Lance. And if Lance’s heart stuttered at the sight of Keith’s small smile, no one needed to know.

“You don’t even know me and you’re already making assumptions?” Keith commented, raising an amused brow at Lance who just grinned widely. 

“Now, now, are you doubting my people reading skills?”

Keith tilted his head, putting his hand to his chin as if he was deep in thought, like he needed a moment to consider his answer, before coming to a  _ conclusion _ . “Yes.” 

“ _ Oh _ , it’s  _ on _ !” Lance exclaimed, grinning all the while.

The dramatic gesture of Lance moving his finger in a scolding manner and the quiet  _ ‘tsk tsk’  _ he added earned another amused scoff from Keith as he shook his head, his dark, messy hair moving around a bit as he did. And Lance’s eyes were stuck on the little smile in Keith’s eyes and lips as he looked at Lance.

A silent air settled between them for a while, not that Lance noticed it. His eyes were glued on the way Keith started to fidget awkwardly, averting his eyes as his nose scrunched up just slightly. It took Keith clearing his throat to break the silence and to get Lance to stop staring at him.

Lance quickly whipped his head around, taking a moment to collect himself before he turned back to Keith just as the other was about to speak.

“I have to get to my next class now,” Keith said, smiling a bit apologetically at Lance. 

“Yeah, same here,” Lance informed, trying to keep his voice from cracking, and kind of failing. “I’ll see you around, then?” 

There was a few surprised blinks of eyes from Keith as he registered what Lance had said. His expression then returned back to his small smile and he nodded his head slowly, as if he wasn’t sure if Lance was joking or not.

Lance watched as Keith almost tripped down the stairs while turning his back to the latino. There was a soft, frustrated grumble as the dark haired boy managed to catch himself before falling. It took all of Lance’s self control not to giggle when it happened but he managed.

Only after Keith had gone down the stairs and was no longer in sight, did Lance start fumbling into his bag in order to find his schedule because he had no idea what he had next. He managed to get a papercut on his finger while going through his bag but he ended up finding the schedule.

He lifted the schedule with his left hand while be put the forefinger of his right hand to stop the bleeding. Quickly scanning through the paper with his eyes, he discovered he had an energy bending class which he unfortunately didn’t share with Hunk. He just wished he could survive another class without the boy made of rays of sunshine who was quickly becoming his best friend.

As Lance started heading towards his next class, which was,  _ thank god _ , in the third floor, his mind wandered to his exchange with Keith. He didn’t think they were friends yet but despite the way Keith had treated him prior to the recent conversation, Lance found himself wanting to befriend Keith. He had from the start wanted to get to know him better because he had seemed like an interesting person but multiple things had got in the way. But now it seemed like the two of them were building some kind of relationship that didn’t include both of them wanting each other dead. At least, that was what Lance hoped.

Only after he got to class, did Lance realize he had forgotten to actually introduce himself properly,  _ again _ .

**\-----**

 

Keith was quite frankly running down the stairs. He even managed to almost trip a couple of times before he got to the second floor where his next class was. _Whatever_ , he had needed the run to clear out his head from the swirling thoughts. 

He slided from the staircase to a quiet corner he happened to spot to avoid any attention from the people standing around, waiting for class to start. No one usually came to bother him since he tended to look kind of pissed on default, so, he had a moment to catch his breath in peace.

It  _ was _ quite the struggle to get his breathing under control when the smoke of the fire burning inside, trying to get out, rose from his mouth in small puffs with every breath. He managed to eventually calm both his breathing and the forming flame. Too much smoke hadn’t escaped, meaning Keith was saved from accidentally activating the school’s fire alarm system,  _ again _ .

And then the thoughts flooded into his head like a huge mass of water breaking through the dam of his mind, muting everything else around him into whiteness.

_ Okay. The situation is solved. And we’re becoming friends? Maybe?  _

Keith shook his head, burying it in his hands as he wrecked through his head, confirming it that he had  _ indeed _ been successful enough with his apology and had even maybe managed to start befriending Lance. It was quite the accomplishment since the last person he actually befriended on his own was Pidge three years ago, but even then he had met them technically through Shiro knowing Matt. Which made Lance the first person he had ever considered befriending without anyone else telling him  _ especially  _ to do so. But that was something to think about on a calmer day. Right now Keith’s head was about to overheat.

“You look happy,” an all too familiar voice noted right next to him, making him jump. 

Pidge was looking at him curiously, tilting their head to make the curiosity effect more clear while Keith looked at them with uncertainty.

He hadn’t even noticed he had been smiling until Pidge had pointed it out but he would still try his best to cover up ever doing so.

Keith, too, tilted his head but for a whole different reason, that being to mock Pidge’s gesture. He frowned at his friend, trying to look as perplexed as he could, pretending not to know what they were even talking about. It either seemed to work or Pidge just wasn’t in the mood for the  _ make-Keith-say-it-himself  _ game they so seemed to love playing.

“Oh my spells, did you apologize to him? Or talk to him?” Pidge asked, running their hands down their face in a frustrated manner while Keith looked slightly alarmed but still confused, he wasn’t giving up that easy. Pidge let out a groan that was almost high and loud enough to be counted as some kind of scream in Keith’s opinion. “I mean Lance.” 

A small  _ ‘oh’  _ and a  _ ‘what’ _ escaped Keith’s mouth, sounding completely fake since he really wasn’t that good at acting as he was in hiding things. He knew immediately from Pidge’s sharp gaze that they saw right through him. 

As his last resort, Keith started to avoid Pidge’s gaze to avoid that tight look that silently demanded for answers. He was certain he would break and give them the information at some point but as if he was going to make it easy for Pidge.

“Keith, seriously, just tell me. I genuinely want to know if my awkward best friend managed to actually talk to another _living_ person.” Pidge’s face took on an open expression and Keith finally decided to give up on making it difficult for them.

“First. I’m not  _ that  _ awkward.” This answer earned an eye roll and a scoff from the shorter spellcaster. “Second. We-”

Keith paused, frowning at the uncertainty rising to his tone. “We… talked?” 

Pidge groaned, throwing their arms in the air in an exaggerated manner before blurting, or more like  _ screeching _ , “for fuck’s sake, that’s all I get?”

Keith raised an eyebrow at that, his expression all but slight amusement at Pidge’s antics mixed with perplexion at their choice of words. It made it sound like Keith owed them a whole, detailed story about how he talked to Lance. Which he really didn’t have since all he did was change a few words with Lance.  _ They didn’t even properly introduce each other! _

“Keith, please, stop with this mysterious bad boy bullshit, we all know you are actually a total nerd!”

“I’m not… doing whatever you are accusing me of,” Keith said, uncertain, before adding, “And aren’t you the nerd?” 

“There can be more than one nerd, keep up with the system, broody boy,” Pidge quickly answered, shaking their head as if they were a parent handling a difficult child. A gesture which Keith knew to be Shiro’s trademark reaction to pretty much any impulsive thing his little brother did.

Keith didn’t really know what more to add to his previous answer so he just didn’t say anything, glancing off to the side into the small groups of people around them, talking amongst each other about whatever they found interesting.

After a bit of silence, Pidge tilted their head in a way that could’ve been taken as empathetic. The movement caught Keith’s eye and he turned back to facing his best friend.

“Did you fuck it up? Is that why you’re avoiding the topic?” they asked, actually sounding genuinely worried, throwing Keith off just slightly.

“What?” Keith yelped, his face becoming alarmed at the accusation. “No? It’s just-”

“Just?”

Keith took a deep breath, readying himself to speak out loud the thoughts that had plagued his mind, to let out the unease that had gnawed at him ever since he had stopped running.

“I’m not sure where we stand right now?” Keith explained, tugging at his bangs nervously. “I apologized and he apologized. And there was an implication of hanging out some time, I think? Or it might’ve been a joke?”

“Hmh, that’s at least some kind of progress, I guess. Plus, you somehow managed to apologize without fucking it up so I’ll call it a win,” Pidge noted, ending the discussion.

It didn’t wipe all of the unease away but it did calm Keith enough to get some of the tension to leave his body.

Keith wasn’t even paying attention as Pidge made their way towards the staircase that lead to the third floor. Just as they arrived at the start of the stairs, they turned to Keith, smiling widely with a weird glint in their eyes.

Keith’s guard was up in an instant.

“I would start heading to class if I were you,” Pidge hummed and then proceeded to quickly make their way up the stairs.

Keith’s eyes widened with realization as he cursed under his breath, quickly hurrying through the ocean of people trying to get to their respective classes to his own class.

He even made another mental note to make Pidge’s next coffee too sweet to drink with the 'putting salt to their soft drink' -one from before.

**\-----**

 

When Keith got out of his class, he immediately started heading for the staircase, to go down to the first floor to not be late for his last class of the day. He had had enough of getting scolded by teachers and them giving him judging looks. 

It was no surprise that all teachers kind of expected Keith to end up getting kicked out of the school. He had already once got suspended from the school for a long enough period of time that he had missed most of the first year, causing him to automatically fail the grade, which was exactly why he was still in first year despite being a year older than an average first year. Pidge didn't count since they were just a natural child genius.

Keith was quite certain that if Pidge, Shiro and Matt hadn’t been there to tell him to get back to school he would’ve just given up and hidden somewhere far away to live for the rest of his life. Plus the fact that he needed to graduate to have the legal permission to go to Areth, which meant he didn’t have to keep sneaking through unnoticed, had a part in his final decision, too. 

Keith also knew that Shiro was getting tired of telling him off whenever he did something that didn’t  _ quite  _ follow the rules and he didn’t want to give his brother too hard of a time. This meant he had to graduate and become like Shiro, just like  _ everyone  _ expected him to be.

Keith was slowly pulled out from his thoughts, that has suddenly started to suffocate him, by a voice that first sounded muffled, like Keith was listening it from under water, before it became clearer and a bit more familiar yet still so new.

It took him a while, but then Keith’s eyes zeroed on a person he had just seen before his previous class. Before he could perfectly register the face in front of him, he felt something warm but firm against his chest. He looked down to see a tan hand with an arm that was covered by a long, baby blue sleeve firmly set in front of him to stop him from walking.

Keith wasn’t even able to get the first syllable out of his mouth when a new kind of sensation took his thoughts and threw them all over the place. He could feel a warm breath brushing over his forehead, too weak to move his bangs but still very real.

“Woah there, mr. Edgy, you’ll fall down the stairs if you keep walking with your head in the clouds!” Lance cheerfully announced and pushed his hand more firmly against Keith. The flamester took this as a sign to move away from the staircase, which he did by taking a couple of steps back.

Before Keith could even thank Lance or question the weird name he had referred him with, Lance was stepping away from him, to the side with a crooked smile on his face. With that small movement, he stole all the words from Keith’s mouth, taking them far from his reach.

“Hi,” Lance said somewhat sheepishly, avoiding Keith’s eyes as he kept dumbly staring at the latino. 

_ Stop staring, you fucking moron! _ Keith screamed at himself and quickly turned his head away, rubbing his neck awkwardly. For a minute he had no idea what to say when Lance wasn’t saying anything either.

Then he realized it was his turn to greet Lance now that Lance had greeted him. He screamed at himself internally before managing to find the courage to glance at Lance again. 

This proved to be a mistake as they locked eyes for a moment, both of them having been looking at each other. Keith turned away quickly, and so did Lance.

“Hello…?” Keith muttered, intensely staring at the floor to avoid another awkward few seconds of lasting eye contact. His greeting ended up sounding like a question because of his uncertainty of how to answer mixed with his nervousness. 

Lance snorted at his confused reply, catching Keith’s attention. Before he knew it his eyes were back on the latino who was hunched over, shoulders shaking as he tried to hold back laughter by pushing the palm of his hand against his mouth. This made Keith’s face heat up from embarrassment.

“What?” Keith questioned, just barely managing to hide the small crack at the end of his question. He tried to sound demanding but failed miserably. 

The latino waved his hand in the air dismissively, shaking his head lightly, and Keith had no idea if the gesture was reassurance or amusement.  _ Maybe both? _

“What’s up?” Lance asked after a moment of gathering himself enough to be able to form sentences without cracking up again. His smile had gone from the amused one to a casual, friendly one.

Keith blinked a couple of times until he processed what had been said to him. It was quite challenging to focus on much anything when he had just made the revelation that Lance had freckles all over his face, mostly on his nose and on his cheeks, right under his eyes. It was like the boy had more freckles than the sky had stars, which of course was  _ impossible _ .

Keith quickly shook the thought of those small but very endearing dots out of his mind to able to gather up enough words to answer.

“Going… to class?” 

Those blue eyes squinted at Keith, causing the dark lashes to shade the eyes in a way that made him need to check if he was actually still breathing. Not to even mention how his freckle covered nose crinkled up very --  _ not _ \--  _ adorably _ .

“Are you seriously phrasing everything as a question right now?”

Keith paused, opening his mouth to counter in some way but the only thing that came out was an unsure, “yes?”

“Oh my god!” Lance exclaimed, his tone dripping with amusement and amazement at the same time as he slapped his hands over his eyes and leaned his head back in what Keith could only deduce as disbelief. 

This made some heat grawl up Keith’s neck and cheeks but he managed to will it down before Lance leaned back forward and returned his eyes on Keith, trying to see what was inside his mind or just looking for small details of his face. Keith returned those searching eyes with a glare.

Ignoring the glare that was given to him, Lance’s gaze paused on what Keith knew to be a minor scar on his right cheekbone. He was about to lift his hand up to cover it but stopped, knowing that trying to cover it would draw more of Lance’s curiosity to it. Which would lead to questions that Keith had heard too many times already. He’d never answered any of them though and he wasn’t about to change that policy with Lance.

Something glinted in Lance’s eyes and they became soft before returning to their usual playfulness as he turned back to making eye contact with Keith. But he didn’t seem to be about to ask any questions, so Keith was grateful, even grateful enough to drop the glare entirely -- it had already pretty much been wiped from his face anyway.

“I’m Lance,” the latino suddenly blurted out, stepping back and offering his hand to Keith to shake.

When Keith just looked down at the offered hand in confusion, Lance coughed into his free hand and avoided his gaze, seeming just slightly sheepish.

“We didn’t really exchange names on the many occasions we happened to run into each other,” Lance started, still not look back at Keith even when his hand was still between them, waiting to be grabbed and shaken. “And I thought that if we were to become friends -- or even just mutuals, if that’s what you’d prefer -- we should properly introduce ourselves. Well, of course it’s possible that you don’t want to have anything to do with me but I just thought that we should still properly do this for the sake of it. Plus, we seem to share a friend so this would make group hang outs less awkward -- if those ever happen. It really depends on Pidge and Hunk want to-”

As Lance went on, his hand slowly started pulling back towards himself, away from Keith. He started to look a bit hysteric as he rambled on, his mouth never stopping it’s movements. 

And all Keith could do was to let his impulses do the work for him.

He grabbed Lance’s hand tightly and pulled it back towards himself which lead Lance to stumble a bit from all the suddenness, causing him to end up pretty close to Keith again, but gladly not as close as he had been at first. It that closeness happened again, Keith was sure to combust right there.

“Hi, Lance, I’m Keith.”

Keith’s heart almost jumped to his throat when immediately after he introduced himself, Lance’s eyes were on him, wide with surprise and joy while his mouth was slowly pulling itself into a wide grin.

_ Since when have I found dimples endearing _ , was all Keith could think to himself when Lance’s smile was right in front of him, in full power, while his eyes squinted, leaving almost only the black irises seeable. 

Keith could feel his body drawing towards Lance, like all the cells of his body wanted to be closer to this tan boy whose smile radiated the warmth and light of all those flames that Keith had started many years ago to associate with the words  _ home _ and  _ safe _ .  _ All those flames _ that had saved him from the darkness that he had been engulfed in before Shiro had come to his life and chased most the darkness away. 

He found himself having difficulties with stopping himself from getting closer to the Lance’s warmth but he managed to will himself to stay put. It was like time listened to his advice to himself and willed to a stop, too. For a moment Keith was pretty sure he wouldn’t able to move away before Lance did.

The only thing that broke the moment was the loud sound of someone banging shut their locker somewhere nearby, thus saving Keith from actually starting to hold the hand of a person he had just started getting to know. That would have been a territory Keith had never been on, and wanted to stay away from.

Both boys pulled away their hands that had still been holding onto each other in a loose handshake, almost like an excuse to hand holding. And then the awkward air with the tensed up air made it’s home between the two.

“I should… probably head to that class I have now,” Keith quickly supplied, starting to lean away from Lance and towards the stairs but otherwise his body made no sign to move, it was like his limbs weren’t listening to his mental pleas that were begging them to get a move on.

“Yeah… I can walk down the stairs with you,” Lance replied quickly and then as quickly added, “um, I mean, since I’m going outside... and the exit door is on the first floor where you seem to heading!” 

Keith ended up just nodding weakly before finally getting his feet to move enough for him to head towards the stairs. Lance followed after him with a few steps behind. 

When they got to the end of the stairs, Keith sharply turned to the right and started heading to that direction. He was abruptly stopped by Lance saying his name loud enough for Keith to just barely hear it from the distance he had gathered between them. It sent shivers down his spine as he thought how easily his body came to a stop at Lance’s voice.

“See you around, dude,” Lance said with a quick wave before he was already running towards the main exit.

Keith stood there, dumbfounded, but mentally he answered to Lance positively, agreeing to ‘ _ see him again _ ’. He didn’t move for a while, taking a moment to try and gather himself so he wouldn’t end up going to the classroom with zero focus.

After he concluded he was finished with getting his focus back, he turned around and started heading toward the way he was already walking to before Lance distracted him.

It took him three determined and one unsure step to realize that he was going to the opposite direction of his class. He quickly turned around and practically sprinted to the classroom. Not because he was late but because he really needed a little wind to cool him off.

**\-----**

 

“So, are you two friends now?” Hunk asked, leaning back casually on his beanbag as he munched on some kind of Oreas version of chips.

He had bought the chips from the small snack shop that was next to the dormitory building on the campus after finishing his last class of the day. Hunk had an Arethian class after Lance’s school day already ended -- Allura had told Lance he didn’t need to attend this class as he already knew more than enough of Areth which the class was about. 

Upon his return, Hunk had immediately flopped down onto the yellow bean bag and opened up the chip bag he had. 

The noise of course had caught Lance’s attention and he had joined his friend’s lounging session to keep him company and to hear about his class. He was curious what Hunk thought of a class dedicated to Arethian knowledge but he also didn’t really have much of a clue on what kind of stuff were actually thought in that class so he was very eager to know.

First Lance had been listening to Hunk as he told him what they had talked about in that class. The more Lance had heard, the more he had understood why he didn’t need to take this class. He even had commented on it and that had earned a chuckle from Hunk.

Eventually Hunk had happened to mention Keith being in the class with him and when Lance had jumped at the name mention, his eyes having a weird glint to them -- according to Hunk -- Hunk had had to ask about his reaction to Keith. And that’s how they had ended up in Lance recapping all his interactions with Keith since he had last seen Hunk. 

Now they were here, at Hunk’s question. A question that Lance had kept asking himself since he had got back to the dorm. A question he still had no answer for.

“I’m not sure,” Lance replied, glancing at the sofa that was positioned in the middle of the living room.

Even when Hunk and Lance had got a couch from Allura as a gift, they still preferred to sit on their bean bags while just relaxing and chatting after a long school day. But, usually, if Hunk was doing something in the kitchen, Lance preferred to sit -- or lie -- on the cough from where it was easier to see into the kitchen.

“He’s kind of hard to read, so, I’m not even sure if he still hates me or not.” 

Lance turned away from the couch and slumped more deeper into the bean bag as if he was trying to hide into it.

Hunk turned to look at his friend right as he covered his eyes with his hands with a frustrated but confused groan. This earned him a pat on the shoulder by the taller boy.

“I don’t know Keith well enough to say if he hates you or not but I don’t think he does. He apologized to you after all,” Hunk stated as he sat up straighter on the bean bag.

“I guess.” 

“Plus, you can always ask Pidge. They are friends with him, right?” 

“Hmm, I feel like asking Pidge would be a bad idea,” Lance muttered suspiciously, getting an amused snort from Hunk which in turn made Lance smile a bit despite the frown that had just previously taken over his face. “Speaking of Pidge…”

Hunk nodded, understanding what Lance wanted to say before he even said it. “They said they would have your phone done on Friday.”

Lance let out a hum of acknowledgement as he turned his head to look at Hunk’s phone that was sitting screen up on the small counter of their living room. Its screen lighted up while a quiet noise of rock’s falling came from the device, informing that a message had arrived.

Without another sound in the room, the phone started unsteadily floating towards the two of them and landed on Hunk’s hand where he focused his attention to read the message.

During all of this, Lance’s eyes intently followed the phone as it floated to Hunk. Once it planted onto his friend’s hand, Lance’s eyes widened with wonder as he realized something being off. He hadn’t even noticed it before but now it hit him in the face like that branch had a few months ago.

“How did you do that?” he asked, leaning closer to Hunk while staring at the screen and where Hunk’s fingers were tapping away at an impressive speed. 

“What?” Hunk questioned, pushing the send button next to the message box and turning the screen off.

His brown eyes were intently on Lance now while the blue eyes of his roommate were still clued on the screen despite it being turned off. Hunk let out a short laugh at the sight.

“You floated it to you without a spell! I thought you needed to use spells to- wait, now that I think about it, when we first met you were using magic without spells, too, weren’t you?” Lance questioned. His eyes went from Hunk to the phone and back multiple times before Hunk even had the chance or words to answer.

“Well, we can use magic to do small tasks without saying the spells out loud. We do it by channeling our own magic energy into things. For example, you can make small objects float with just channeling your energy into them but the more heavier and bigger the thing is, the more difficult it is,” Hunk explained. He got up to return the phone to the counter it had previously been on before he continued, “We can’t use it too much, though. It’s mostly used to making small objects float and move. We can’t make things appear nor can we change things to different things without using actual spells. And spells make things a lot easier, really. Just channeling magic energy can get exhausting if you do it too much.”

Hunk then made his way back to the yellow bean bag and flopped down on to it while Lance blinked a few times in wonder.

The smallest of  _ ‘whoa’ _ s escaped his mouth while he stared down at his hands that were clenching onto his blue bean bag. He couldn’t help wondering how it would feel like to channel energy from his body to objects and back. He was starting to feel eager to learn how to do it.

He clenched his fists more as he closed his eyes. He started going through all the instances of someone using spelless magic -- there weren’t many of those but it didn’t fail to make him even more excited -- when suddenly he could see crimson flames behind his eyelids, beautifully but dangerously dancing right before him. 

Then his eyes shot open.

He turned to Hunk so quickly that the taller boy almost fell off his bean bag because of surprise.

“But, how about the specific abilities a spellcaster has? For example Keith who can make flames appear out of  _ thin air _ without any spells?” Lance asked, looking very determined to find the answer, his eyes intently scanning Hunk’s every move and reaction.

It took a moment for Hunk to calm down from his former shock but once he did, he swallowed loudly and cleared his throat in order to gather himself fully and get to explaining.

“Even specific spellcaster can’t make things appear out of  _ thin air  _ without  _ any  _ spells,” Hunk started slowly, immediately lifting his hand to silence Lance who was about to object with a  _ ‘but…’ _ and then continuing, “however we can turn even the smallest part of ourselves into whatever we are specialized in.” 

A blank expression took over Lance’s face as he listened to Hunk. He shortly after slumped down onto the floor -- falling down off of the bean bag -- and buried his face into his hands with a small sigh.

_ It’s all so confusing. _

“ _ Any _ part of themselves?” Lance mumbled from behind his hands, not even making any attempt to moving them to speak more clearly.

“Yeah. A single drop of blood or one strand of hair could be turned into an  _ endless _ supply of whatever one is specialized in.”

Silence fell into the room as the words weighed on Lance’s shoulders like a jacket that’s pockets had been filled with lead. He had no idea why but it kind of scared him. The thought of someone being able to have an endless supply of something, possibly deadly ( _ like fire _ ), only from a small, almost insignificant part of themselves sounded dangerous. 

But even while it made Lance’s skin crawl with possible threat of realizing how he should start being more careful around the people of Oreas, it also made his heart full of excitement. He was one of these people with endless power now, he was part of them. Even if he still barely had any idea how to use these said powers or what he  _ specialized _ in.

“Do you wanna go for a walk?” Hunk asked after a while, his voice cutting through the silence in the room and the worries inside Lance’s head. It made Lance’s anxious thoughts freeze in his mind.

The latino paused, jolting a bit when he suddenly felt more free to move again now that Hunk’s kind voice had took some weight off of him. It wasn’t all gone but enough for him to let the excitement about the situation to take the lead role while the dread and anxiety fell to the background.

“Sound good, I haven’t seen enough of the area around here yet to know how to navigate. Let’s go!” 

After his words, they both stood up almost at the same time. Lance ran to the door to get his shoes on while Hunk threw his schoolbag into his room before following Lance’s example of going to put on his shoes.

Lance ended up learning that there was a food place close to the campus that served popular Arethian foods and it immediately became his favourite place,  _ for now _ .

**\-----**

 

The sky slowly darkened as the sun sunk down to make way to the moon and the stars. There were very few clouds in the sky, making the night sky one of the clearest in a while.

Even when all of the stars had yet to appear, the  _ true night _ had already begun, making the sky into a one way class for someone -- or  _ something _ \-- that had been buried into history long ago.

It was a silent night, the only faint sound being the wind moving the trees’ leaves and branches around, making them quietly murmur the song of the forest. It was a song that everyone could hear but never understand as the language of nature had been long forgotten, or perhaps it was never known at all.

Somewhere a creature hiding inside the night sky, behind that one way class, woke up from a sleep it had fallen to such a long time ago that even the stories of that time had almost withered away. It lifted its head, opening its eyes by blinking them a few times. It was quite the calm wake for someone so ancient and powerful until something changed.

The creature’s head shot up, waking another creature beside it. A question quieter than silence itself escaped the other creature’s mouth as it looked up at the creature who was looking around cautiously.

The creature turned to its still groggy  _ friend _ with eyes that answered the eye contact with plain fear. With one blink of an eye, both of the creatures were no longer showing signs of drowsiness. Instead they were filled with anticipation and tension.

The fist awoken creature opened its mouth and let out words that felt like they could shake the ground despite being only slightly louder than silence but quieter than the song of the forest.

“Returned… it has… returned…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm I wonder if these bois getting to know each other will lead to good or bad, hmmmmm...  
> I also wonder what that creature was, so mysterious...
> 
> well, being cryptic aside, I hope everyone's having a wonderful day !!  
> ps. we'll see how long it'll take me to get the next chapter out with all this stress I'm having,,,,   
> BUT fear not, I will do my best to deliver you some more spellcaster klance as quick as possible for me -- at least I'll try, hah

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it (and wants more, which speaking of-)
> 
> The next chapter is already mostly written so I should just finish writing it and then edit it through! ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧  
> I don't promise anything (like getting the second chapter out next week) but it won't probably take me two months to finish
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading!! 川o･-･)ﾉ


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